Yes, I brought sunscreen. No, I didn't think to put it on yesterday before our walk. Good thing I confessed my little management-lie to the two people I work closest with, huh? Explanation: I have taken so much time off lately to go to Youngstown, and have scheduled a trip at the end of July and then a week in early August, so I was very hesitant to tell management I was taking a day off to do something so frivolous as go to the beach. So I told them I had a bunch of workmen coming to the house. But I told Ed and Chris, who work in the next offices, what the real deal was. And now I see that was a good thing. I thought I was having an inordinate number of hot flashes last night, but when I looked in the mirror, I realized my face was sunburned!
I'm not really a beach person. I much prefer hiking in the mountains, maybe off Skyline Drive, or taking a walk on a long tree-shaded path, as on Sea Pines Plantation on Hilton Head Island. If I walk on a beach, I prefer it to be early or late in the day. Why? I burn. I burn easily.
Once I got my driver's license, I was prone to cut classes in the afternoon and drive the 45 minutes to Daytona Beach. I think my lifelong-best-friend Gail went with me a couple of times, but I don't think she ever would have cut class, so my memories of her must have been Sunday memories. (Never Saturday. Not allowed in the keep-the-seventh-day-Sabbath commandment.) (And we went in Mother's car. Daddy would never have let us take the Corvette!) I/We would lie on the beach, turning as on a rotisserie, never thinking about the sun. But two or three days later I would be suffering. I remember driving to school with such a horrible burn on my back that I could not lean my back against the seat. Boy, were we stupid in those days. Is it any wonder that I now have to visit the dermatologist every six months and have already had one basal cell carcinoma site excised from my face?
(I remember one time, when Scott was about six months old, when we visited friends in Tampa and sat by their pool in the afternoon. We had Scott's playpen out by the pool and laid him in it and draped something over the top. But of course that didn't protect him. The poor little thing was so horribly burned. I fear now that someday he'll have skin cancer on his back and it will be all my fault. Oh, I'm such a mother.)
As Gail (friend now, not friend then) and I walked on the beach yesterday, I heard again that lovely sing-song sound of sand whistling out from beneath my shoes as I walked. I think there must be a list somewhere of loveliest sounds in the universe. If so, that sand-sound is on the list.
Last night we drove into Laguna Beach and had tacos and drinks at Las Brisas. And we people-watched. I really don't know how people live in California. I'm struck by the density of both the housing and the humanity. And the people I see, the Californians, strike me as different. Louder, laughier, more into their enjoyment. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But it's sure not me. I just couldn't live here.
<Personal note on>
Eileen,
I'm so sorry I couldn't fit you and Jacki in on this trip. I hope you haven't become stereotypical Californians. ;-) Really, are you enjoying living here, aside from your fabulous new job and all the fabulous opportunities Jacki's been able to avail herself of?
<Personal note off>
Growing up Adventist in Orlando, we were very conservative, sheltered, by-the-book. We didn't eat meat. We didn't drink alcohol. We didn't smoke or dance or go to movies or drink caffeinated beverages. We didn't go out to dinner on Sabbath, because Jesus didn't want us to spend money on the Sabbath. We didn't read a newspaper or a secular magazine on Sabbath. We didn't wear jewelry or color our hair or wear makeup. We didn't play cards or gamble or get involved in political activities — run for political office? Never! We were "in the world" but not "of the world." But oh, we heard about those California Adventists. They were one step from heathen. They would eat meat and go to movies. The girls probably wore short skirts and bleached their hair. We knew they weren't good Adventists.
Now I look back at all of that and realize those California Adventists must have just had a sense of reality, a good dose of "Get real!"
Maybe that's what a good dose of sand between one's toes and sun on one's nose yields.
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