Summer Shorts…

-Parent to a child in the beach parking lot

            “No, we’re not going to the freaking water park. We’re at the beach!”

            Yea, to that parent for choosing the beauty and simplicity of nature over the manufactured mayhem of a water park.

            What would a kid learn at a water park that can compare to a beach?

• The water may look cleaner, but it’s full of chemicals. Delusions don’t make things safer.
• On the lazy river, the scenery is concrete and plastic palm trees. That crap will be on earth forever. It’s not pretty as it degrades.
• The slide has twists and turns, but the twists become predictable after a few trips down. The same old routine numbs the mind after so many runs to the pool at the end.
• A bucket dumps water whoo, freaking, hoo.

            The beach is a true teacher of life. The beach can kick your ass, but it also feeds the soul.

• Waves come and go and vary in size and frequency. There’s no predictability. Turn your back, and you find yourself tumbling with the seashells. Then King Neptune reaches up and pounds you again. You keep getting up to face the next wave.
• You’ll get sand in your shorts that will chafe until you deal with it. Deal and move on.
• Seagulls prowl for food. You learn not to feed the parasites.
•  In the ocean, somethings might eat you.
• Despite the terrors of the deep, the ocean is pure beauty.
• You catch glimpses of dolphins.
• Listen to the waves. The pounding surf shares secrets.
• Feel the warmth of the sand and the breeze across the skin, its gentleness defined.
• Taste the salt on the lips. It’s free.
• We are all specks when compared to the vastness of the ocean. In the vastness of the sea even the little things are necessary.

       No freaking water park mom deserves credit. She’s not raising wussies.