A Writing Exercise: A Day At The Beach

The sky is blue.

I stare at this sentence. 

The page is more blinding than the sun reflecting off the lake. It's our first trip to the beach this summer. My son settled into building a sand castle while I laid out our towels. I sat, feeling the sun-warmed sand beneath me and I pulled out my notebook and pen. Perfect time for a writing exercise, because, yes, I do practice this.

The sky is blue.

Azure?

The white pages stare back, my one black line a guffaw in my face. The sky is blue?! How is this the only sentence that comes to mind? Argh. I am no Mary Oliver. I’m not even Mary Oliver’s cousin twice removed and hidden in an attic for fear of embarrassment. 

A few fluffy white clouds drift over the sky. One looks like Star Trek’s Enterprise if it were made of polyfill. It moves in front of the sun. My page doesn’t seem so white now. It’s simply paper bound into a book. But the sky is blue…how else to describe the sky? I tip my head back until all I see is sky. Unending…blue.

I ditch the pen and notebook and build - I wouldn't call it an epic sand castle - but it was damn good. I’ve always enjoyed building. Maybe it is the creative impulse. My son and I create a sprawling castle. One that could house dragons and mages and a princess’ yearnings. I grab the notebook again. I feel the heat of early summer, comfortable, easy, welcome. I turn my eye to the water like a painter. I don't lift my thumb to measure anything but I stare, pen poised and then I write: the water is brown. Gah! Brown? That sounds terrible. Tan? What is the color of the sand? These boring declarative sentences. I tap my pen on the page. Stare at the water that does appear brown at the shoreline before it steadily fades to a blue. How does one describe water?

I chew on a fingernail. Watch the wet sand dry in the summer sun. The light breeze around us makes the sand shift, which makes me jumpy because I’ve already seen too many spiders. I heap sand on top of one spider and watch it easily emerge from the multi-colored grains. 

Later, once we are home I come across this quote by W.B. Yeats: “the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for your senses to grow sharper.” Thank you W.B. Yeats for telling me to try harder. 

Lately, I have been reading some amazing books on nature. Far flung places that are so different from my U.P. home. The arctic, Iceland. Places with extremes. And here I am trying to capture the scent of fresh air. How does one describe fresh air? Unlike what Frebreze would tell you, there is no scent. Or maybe my nose palette isn’t so refined. Do I need to leave and come back to discover the intricacies of the U.P. air? I know my dog would be able to tell a different story. He probably smells a riot of scents. Does his brain categorize them? This is oxygen. This is fish. That over there is the mean birds with the long necks. Here is the scent of limestone, of iron, of quartz. Instead, the breeze brings me human scents. A woman’s perfume. Sunblock. Cigarette smoke. I let the grains of sand run through my fingers, throw away the idea of snorting the sand to see if it has a scent. It’s already in my teeth, in the creases of my elbows, behind my knees, caked on my feet and shins. 

The sand castle has begun to flake away under the sun when my son turns his attention to the bugs. I tense, never sure how he is going to react. This time last year he refused to go outside alone because the bugs might get him. So far this year, he has oscillated between a slightly less intense fear and wide-eyed interest. He cautiously follows a spider and tries in vain to capture it in his sand bucket. He gets frustrated with my inability to foresee his needs and bring the old sour cream containers and Cool Whip containers he’s been using to catch his new friends. I have to soothe his broken heart every time a bug gets away. He is on the ground, on his hands and knees, face close to the ground. He repeatedly asks for help and I make it look like I’m helping, trying to mask my fear of crawly things. In all, he finds a ladybug, many spiders, and a grub. They, except the ladybug, who we discover is dead, manage to escape. 

Where the water hits the beach, a line of black appears. It’s iron and the water deposits it in long striations along the beach. When I was a kid I loved finding it. It was always softer, smoother, than the other grains of sand. So black but would sparkle in the sun. I drag my toes through one such line and think about one of the books I’ve read lately: Looking For The Hidden Folk: How Iceland’s Elves Can Save The Planet by Nancy Marie Brown. Some Icelanders believe elves live in the rocks. Looking at pictures of the lava creations, I can see how people could believe magic exists for there is something unique within those creations that calls to the creative side of the mind. Something that tears the blinders of rationality off adults. While I sit here with my butt in the sand, describing things as blue, brown, and nothing, I try to bring forth that imaginative side of my brain. That wonder I know my son still has. 

So often I bend my knee to him, get at his eye level, usually to explain something or to make sure he is listening. While always trying to get him to see my perspective, what have I missed by not seeing his? What are treasures to kids turn invisible, or in the case of bugs, a nuisance to adults. What sight have I lost over the years? If I wanted to see elves or magical creatures or gods in the land around me could I still?

In embarrassment, I recall feeding a recording of a mourning dove into an app because I couldn’t remember who emitted the soft who, who, whooo. It’s a bird that’s probably been in the background my entire life now a discarded memory tossed out for something supposedly more important.

When we leave, my son asks to walk down the beach before making our way back to the car. I mishear him when he says "Why does this beach have so many treasures?" I  think he actually said shells (an invasive species to the Great Lakes) but I choose to remember it as "treasures." Over and over he bent down to retrieve something off the beach - a rock, a feather, a snail shell - and leaned on a too-short walking stick like some decrepit old man trailing behind me asking questions. Why are there so many shells? Is that boat coming here? Why are there so many rocks? Can we come back with Copper? With my cousins? Why do my feet hurt? 

I respond: Because there are; no, the boat isn't coming here; the rocks prevent erosion; yes, we can come back with your cousins; probably not with Copper; the sand is hot. My writing exercise and its worries now buried by the beige sand…multi-colored sand…soft sand…gah. Whatever, at least I went to the beach.