SAND, man!

Do you ever wish you could go back and change the past? Tell your girlfriend that she looked beautiful, not bountiful? Enthusiastically ensure your boss his idea was cataclysmic, not catatonic? Rhapsodize, not repulsorize, your friend’s wedding dress? (Fine, that last one was stretching it.)

Well my friends, we’re only human. We’re not perfect. We all wish we could take back events from our past. Redo them. I know I had many moments just this summer I would like a do-over for.

Indeedy, just like that bone-chilling, boom-boom-cracking last night (was that unbelievable or what?), specific momentitos are crashing and flashing before my eyes.

(You are going to judge the shit out of me in exactly five seconds...yep, I counted how long it takes to read the next sentence.)

Yes, yes my dearest comrades. There were dozens upon dozens of times this summer that...that...that...I wished there was such a thing as a sandless beach. And, sad face, those are expired experiences that I cannot redo nor relive. Sigh.
If given the chance, though, I promise I’d be better about bitching. I promise I’d be perfectly perfect and not whine or complain or go bonkers one bit. If only I could have a do-over, if only I could go back to Nauset Light or Craigville or Misquamicut or Longport or Sullivan’s Island, I promise, Girl Scout’s Honor, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-pinky-swear that I wouldn’t utter a peep about the sand all over my bags n’ bod. 

I can’t tell you many seconds, minutes, wasted breaths, senseless air time with an imaginary mike in my hands I’ve spent grumbling, bellyaching, and cursing about how stupid sand gets everywhere. This summer especially! (Maybe that’s just because I’ve beached up up a whole lot more than I have in a long, long time. I know – I’m a brat.)
Seriously though. Sand is like air the way it encompasses you, coats you, cloaks you in a fine mist; how those finely granulated rock and mineral particles infiltrate your bags, your hair, your bathing suit; how, like birdseed on honey, those teeny tiny grits glue themselves to your wet, sunscreened, oiled up skin.

And don’t let go.

But I must say that perhaps my hatred is only on the surface – albeit a sand-encrusted-skin surface.

You see, last week when I was on my nightmare train trek back to the city, I opened my book and out fell – can you guess? – particles of Cape Cod beachness. And I smiled.

If sand granules could make me smile in the midst of a miserable Metro North experience, I guess life really is a beach.