Travelogue - 4 July 2008 (part III)
I attempt to protect my porcelain white skin with SPF 45 sunblock (with Helioplex). I apply before we leave the house and several times on the beach. I return home without a spot of pink.
Later that day, after my shower, the Captain notices my shoulders look a little red. Several hours after that, the texture of the couch irritates my thighs. At dinner my t-shirt rubs painfully against my back.
Once home again, I strip down and look in the mirror. The undersides of both legs are scorched. The skin on my back is red and angry. Two symmetrical burns overtake each shoulder blade, arc at the tops of my shoulders, and trail off down the triceps. It looks like I have crimson wings. They are hot to the touch.
My clothes are almost unbearable against my skin. I have to sleep on my stomach that night (and several nights following).
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of aloe.
SPF 75 next time.
Travelogue - 4 July 2008 (part II)
Now that it’s hot, lots of people begin showing up on the beach. Mostly we see families. The bay is more child-friendly than the ocean. Most people stay a good distance away from our blanket. I wonder if they think we’re honeymooners. I am glad they give us space.
I secretly watch the families. One man walks along the water’s edge carrying a toddler. I doubt she’s much more than a year old. She wears a skirted swimsuit and white sandals. He wears red swim trunks and a brown baseball cap. He puts her down so she can feel the sand and water. He kneels in front of her, talking to her as she experiences the beach, perhaps for the first time. She stumbles and he scoops her up. He continues his parade down the sand. He is the proudest father on the beach. I can feel it even from where I sit. I guess this is his first baby. I look for the rest of his family, but if there are more, I never see them. The man hoists the child onto his shoulder and slowly disappears from view.
Another father sets up his blanket not far to the right of us. He and his two boys take off down the beach. A few moments later a woman approaches the blanket, a small boy in tow. She looks around and starts yelling at the man.
“John? John. John! John, come here so I don’t have to shout across the beach!”
He dutifully returns, followed by the older boys.
“Why did you park our stuff here? She instructed me to be right by the parking lot. They always park near the lot. We were supposed to be by the lot.”
They are not far from the lot and the beach isn’t that crowded. He may be pointing this out, but we can’t hear him. Only her.
“The whole reason we came was to be with them, wasn’t it? Isn’t that why we’re here? They’ll NEVER find us over here. We were supposed to be near the parking lot. She told me to be near the lot. Why can’t you follow directions?”
He wordlessly begins to pack up their stuff to move it.
“No, leave it. Leave it! We’ll just pretend we came here to be alone. I said LEAVE IT! Why aren’t you listening? Leave it. We’ll sit here because Daddy can’t follow directions. We’ll sit here and they’ll sit over there. We’ll stay here so Daddy knows he’s a screw up.”
I press my face to the Captain’s stomach so she won’t see me laughing. The Captain is snickering too.
“One day that could be us,” I whisper.
“I know,” he chuckles.
“Where’s the sunscreen? Oh God, you left it in the car, didn’t you? The car? Now I’ll have to walk a mile to get it because we’re so far from the parking lot.”
We go in the water to escape the noise of her nagging. When we return their blanket is about fifteen feet further away from us.
Travelogue - 4 July 2008
We arrive at the beach early. It’s cool for swimming, but comfortable for sitting and relaxing. We walk across the sand, away from the parking lot. Very few people are out. The Captain worries that he’s read the tide chart wrong, and for a moment I think he’ll want to go to the ocean side instead. I assure him we’ll be fine and help him set out our blanket.
I take off my sandals and walk in the soft, hot sand. I let my feet sink into it. I love the way it feels. I wish aloud that I had a jar so I could take some Cape Cod sand home with me. (I have to settle for the sand that creeps into my shoes, towel, and beach bag.)
I walk from the soft, loose mounds of sand onto the hard, packed sand. Then I walk on the wet sandbars, amazed at how the same sand can produce so many different sensations.
We picnic on the beach.
The sky is overcast, but the sun fights to break through the clouds. The air is dry, comfortable and warm. I alternate between reading a book and exploring the beach for treasures for Little Sister. It isn’t hard for me to think with the mind of a nine-year-old. In a short while I’ve assembled a collection of seashells, spiky seeds, crab claws, sea glass, a pine cone, and a small dead crab. I carefully dust the sand off each item and place it in the disposable tupperware the Captain had packed my lunch in.
The sun comes out, which makes it HOT. The Captain plays in the water, but gets lonely quickly and returns to our blanket. I walk along the water’s edge, flirting with the waves. When they finally wash over my feet, I complain the water is too cold and run back to read on the sand. Eventually the Captain coaxes me into the water, but I’ll wade in only up to my thighs. I worry about stepping on crabs. I can just touch the surface of the bay with my fingertips, and trail them back and forth as I let the waves push and pull at me, rocking my body.
There are too many sights, sounds, smells, and textures for me to experience. Nothing can keep my attention. I frequently pause from reading to snuggle the Captain, or to sink my toes into the sand, or to make a line of reeds poking up along the edge of our blanket. The Captain laughs at my fortress. He says he should have bought me a plastic shovel and pail so I could make sand castles. I laugh too, although secretly I think it sounds like a fine idea.
Travelogue - 3 July 2008
The drive from our little cottage home in Connecticut to the house in Cape Cod takes between three to four hours. My excitement is palpable, wafting off of me as I chatter and fidget, unable to keep quiet or still.
The road trip unlocks distant memories. I recall a brown, clunky tape player and listening to books on tape - Mary Poppins and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I remember how we followed along with the audio recording, turning each colorful page at the sound of the beep. My mother gave us juice to drink - blue, red, orange, or purple sugary liquid in little plastic bottles that resembled mini barrels or grenades. They had foil tops that weren’t reclosable, so we had to make sure we didn’t waste them.
How many of us children were there then? Two? Three? I wonder if we were in my father’s blue Datsun with the vinyl seats my thighs stuck to in the summer heat.
I share all this with the Captain, then ask if we can visit a real tourist trap place on the Cape where I’ll be likely to find a sand castle. When I was a child I received a tiny blue sand castle as a gift. I was amazed by the small sculpture and handled it until it began to disintegrate.
I am certain Little Sister needs just such a trinket, even though she is guaranteed to destroy it in less than a week. The Captain promises we’ll look for one. I cross and uncross my legs a few times more as I internally squeal with delight.
Every so often I ask what state we’re in, afraid I’ll miss the transitions from Connecticut to Rhode Island and from Rhode Island to Massachusetts. The Captain bears this with great patience, even when I demand to know why Rhode Island is named such when it’s clearly not an island at all.
He fails to produce a satisfactory answer.*
Which prompts more questions.
The Captain does not seem excessively bothered by this, although I’m fairly sure he now has a taste of what it is like to travel with children. I suspect his tolerance may be a sign that he is just as excited.
This is our first vacation in two years.
* According to Wikipedia, Rhode Island, officially named the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is called Rhode Island in common usage, but most of the state lies on the North American mainland. Providence Plantations refers to the mainland, while Rhode Island is actually the official name for Aquidneck Island (now composed of the city of Newport, and the towns of Middletown and Portsmouth).
The Captain is aware that RI is officially named the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, but didn’t know that “Providence Plantations” refers to the non-island part we were driving through.
The Telltale Scars of Stupidity
There comes a point in my relationships when curiosity overcomes the guys’ better judgment and they ask, “Where did you get these scars?”
For a time I used to reply, “I spent a few summers working in the circus as the lovely assistant to a sword thrower with a lazy eye.”
Whether or not they believed me, it generally stopped them from asking.
For a change, once I was honest.
“Oh those? They’re from my sister.”
My sister and I didn’t get along particularly well when we were children. She was a volatile personality with a quick temper in those days. Everyone walked on eggshells around her knowing that saying the wrong thing could send her into a wild rampage. Everyone, excepting myself. It was my personal mission to say exactly the wrong thing every time. I was a champion instigator.
For a while my parents attempted to preserve my pitiful life, seeing as how I was being so careless with it. But eventually they tired of prying my writhing, clawing, screeching, demon-possessed sister off my mutilated body. “She’ll learn,” they told each other after each maiming.
I didn’t. It was like a drug for me. I knew that provoking my sister into a Hulk-like frenzy meant that vicious beast of a child would attempt to decapitate me, gouge my eyes out, or drag me into the street and throw me in front of traffic, but I never got tired of that precious look she got just before she went postal.
One night I was sitting on my parents’ bed, relating some story or another to my mother and father when suddenly the door flew open, smashing into the wall and startling my folks. I cringed slightly, realizing that as my tale grew more animated I must have gotten louder. Yes, there in the doorway was the Harpy, with fire glowing in her eyes.
My father immediately pretended to be asleep. My mother glanced at me with genuine concern. My sister’s death stare was fixated upon me. I froze, mentally pleading with myself, Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t move. Don’t speak.
In a voice that would have made Satan shudder, she growled, “I was trying to sleep.”
I bit my tongue bloody. I wanted to say something, but I knew how foolish that would be. If ever you would like to experience the pain I was setting myself up for, go outside and look for a stray cat. A big, mangy, battle-scarred, starving tom. The kind that hisses at the sight of you. Now, grab him by the testicles and drop him into a bag. Shake vigorously for three minutes. Then open the sack just enough to stick your eager face inside it.
But I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t (and still don’t) know when to shut up. I knew I was about to say something I’d regret. I reached up to cover my mouth, hoping to prevent any antagonism from spilling out.
She saw me move. I was done for. Her body burst into flame and she roared at me. “I was trying to sleep!”
“Well, obviously you weren’t trying hard enough,” I said.
Time froze. There we were, suspended in that moment. I believe that in the heavenly sphere, angels were being dispatched in a frenzy of Divine Intervention.
And then my mother laughed.
My sister’s head snapped in the direction of the sound of merriment, and then she snapped it back to glower at me. I watched the brigade of seraphim beat a quick retreat as she came charging at me, hypnotic curls of smoke issuing from her nostrils.
. . .
I don’t remember anything after that.