Sand Stays at the Beach

On an ordinary Friday morning we go to the beach for no reason in particular except that we can. 

We find a close parking spot in the neighborhood. We have graduated from the beach wagon and each kid carries a bucket filled with faded plastic sand toys and their water bottle while I carry a beach bag and towels. 

Our lunches aren’t fussy–their bento boxes are packed with the same circle sandwiches they eat on school days, blueberries, peanut butter pretzels, a couple grape tomatoes. I have a simple turkey wrap and treat myself to a Spindrift sparkling water that is now beading sweat.

The kids scamper off to scoop sand and return to drizzle soupy handfuls across my bare feet. 

“I want to remember this,” I think. 

I snap a picture of their faces radiant in the sun, but the shadows obscure their joy.  The glare on my phone’s screen makes their faces seem out of reach, and I wonder if my memory of the day will be obscured like this also. 

There is wisdom in paying attention. In finding the beautiful in the ordinary. 

There is pressure, too. 

Don’t blink or you’ll miss it! They grow up so fast! 

The gentle whisper, “I want to remember this” gets sharper, “You must remember this.”

It’s an ordinary moment turned extraordinary–the light just so, their laugh just so, the day just so.  I want to squeeze and savor it. But the moment starts squeezing me. 

And I’m snapping more pictures and grasping for phrases in my mind to describe the delight in their squeals and the salty sea curls at the nape of my daughter’s neck. 

I felt conflicted writing about this as an “ordinary” day at the beach with my kids. 

I know we have it good in San Diego with the weather and the beaches. I know we have it good with my part-time schedule and summers off. I know we have it good with two perfectly healthy, smart, and thriving kids. 

Sometimes the goodness feels oppressive. Like if I don’t notice it enough, give thanks enough, document enough, it will be ripped away. 

At the beach, I put down my phone and close my eyes. I scoop up a handful of warm sand and let it slide between my fingers. 

Maybe the moment isn’t meant to be captured. Maybe it’s allowed to slip away.

My kids run and splash, drop their sandwiches in the sand and eat the gritty bread anyway. I poke my index finger across my shoulder and watch a white fingerprint fade back to light pink; my signal to reapply sunscreen or pack up. I collect the buckets and shovels and shake out the towels. 

Back at the car, I peel the wet bathing suits off my kids’ damp, sticky bodies and rinse their feet with my water bottle.  

“Sand stays at the beach,” I tell them. 

I brush the grains off my own ankles as a pang of guilt washes over me. How can I be sure I’ll remember this ordinary Friday, these extraordinary days? 

“Sand stays at the beach,” I tell myself. It’s enough to know we lived the memory. I can let it slip away. 

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Ordinary Inspiration."