As of 7:28 am. yesterday, it is officially summer, and the first Misbehaving Tuesday of summer just calls for a spontaneous trip to the beach. That all sounded great this morning, except for the thought of spontaneously spending six hours in the car. Almost as a joke, I googled “Baltimore beaches,” thinking that maybe there would be a nice lake around somewhere, completely forgetting about the giant body of water that borders two sides of the county. After getting directions to Rocky Point Beach, I loaded up my backpack:
1. Sunscreen
2. Bug spray
3. Towel
4. iPhone / iPod
5. Notebook
6. Book (I can misbehave and get some reading done for training, right?)
7. Flagrant disregard for innumerable domestic chores and professional responsibilities that can not be tended to while sitting on a beach chair
8. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
9. Water
10. Straw hat with a ribbon on it
11. Camera
I found a quiet corner of the beach of where I could read, and it turns out, do a really, really bad job of spraying sunscreen on my body, effectively tie-dying my midsection. After ten pages of reading in the hot sun, I started to lose focus, and there was suddenly an abundance of thoughts to sort through. First, that no matter what else might be happening, I was sitting with my feet in the sand on a Tuesday afternoon, looking out at seagulls and sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay, and therefore I had absolutely nothing about which to complain. Then the state of my life address started from on high. As I spiraled through thought after thought, my straw hat turned into the sorting hat, sorting the thoughts out into categories – writing, vocation, sex, worldly things, not so worldly things, and so on, trying to make sense of a million little riddles that all have the same answer: me, and love.
By the way, Ravenclaw, if anyone is wondering. I am certain of it.
It was pointed out to me today that this sounds more like a relaxing and pleasant Tuesday than a Misbehaving Tuesday, and my response to that is that the misbehaving comes from the flagrant disregard for responsibility, which is why I was sure to bring it with me. But if you really want to get down to the nuts and bolts of misbehaving, there is this:
On the way back through the parking lot, my presence interrupted some kids making out in a shiny blue pickup truck, parked next to my car. They saw me, the girl dismounted, and they sat in the truck while she fanned herself with her hands, waiting for old me to leave. It took me some time to get myself moving – I had to let the car cool off for a few minutes (first air conditioning usage of the summer). I took too long for them, and they left the truck and walked off together toward the picnic area. He was nondescript and moved quickly; she had long, long hair in a ponytail, a pink shirt, and shorts that were far too short and tight for her thighs, but when you’re seventeen you can have thighs that puff out from under your shorts like they’re the busted seam of a tube of refrigerated biscuit dough and it’s still appealing. My car had cooled off by then, but I lingered for a moment, watching them as they settled in behind a picnic table. She disappeared from sight, but he sat upright. I took a long sip of water and watched just long enough to wonder if she was down there sucking him off, long enough to feel a little self-conscious about how long I was watching them, and long enough to see her reach her arms up around his shoulders, to see her ponytail swing upward with the momentum of her embrace, just long enough to feel a sense of loss that hit me so deeply in my tie-dyed gut that I couldn’t move.
But then, I could. And I drove away.
The image of his shiny blue truck and her biscuit-dough thighs ebbed as I found my way back to the beltway, replaced by wonder that for the past three years I have lived a mere twenty-seven minutes from a cute little beach without knowing it. Imagine that – from home to toes in the sand in twenty-seven minutes. Splendid! Then I was onto thoughts about making scones tonight and what would comprise this post. It was supposed to be about my chocolate-brown bikini, a big, positive turn around in my body image recently, and the comically angry women on the beach who were mad at sand and leaving to go to another beach where they could “do more stuff,” and my ideas about what that “more stuff” might be.
So that’s it, another Misbehaving Tuesday in the hopper, another in a series of slightly downer posts. Of course it will all come back to underpants and boobs and shoes soon, it always does. It always comes back to shoes.
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