Sandy Girl

My daughter turns one this week and we celebrated by going to Aruba as a family. My mom, stepdad, sister, wife, daughter, and myself. My mom calls the beach her happy place, and my dad, though he’s passed, would have likely echoed that sentiment. My wife, too. Feet in the sand, sun on your skin, the sound of waves crashing in the distance. It is blissful, I must agree, though I am easily annoyed by noisy strangers and easily bored once cigar is smoked, magazine read, and cocktail(s) finished. (It doesn’t help that I go from white to red in about 30 seconds flat, my skin looking something like the national flag of Poland by days end.)

I prefer cities and adventure, activities and experiences, but it’s impossible for me to deny the role the beach has played in my life. For what feels like my entire time knowing him, my dad lived in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and when he died, my aunt and I sprinkled some of his ashes in the sand dunes there. I have fond memories of being in the ocean with him and on more than one occasion, I have stared out at it, and thought of my dad, hoping that whatever problems that were plaguing me at the time would wash away with the tide. He always had a sort of Hakuna Matata outlook, likely facilitated or encapsulated by his proximity to the beach.

I reject the moniker Girl Dad mostly because I loathe anything cliche or corny. But it feels cosmically consistent that I would be tasked with raising a woman. My mom was a single mother for long stretches of my childhood. I am surrounded by strong women, including my wife, mother in law, two sisters in law, and of course, my own mother. I can’t help but reflect on the beach and these figures in my life at the same time, particularly as I sit here, observing them both.

My mom nestles my daughter against her chest, rocking her back and forth, shushing her to sleep, a towel blocking her rosy cheeks against the harsh sun. Over the years, and in this moment particularly, I have learned to love the beach, not for what it does for me, but what it does for them. It brings my mom and wife peace, and as a son, husband, and father, what better job is there for me than to deliver them to peace.

At one point during our trip, my daughter rolls off the fitted sheet we’ve fashioned as a playmat, resting her head against the warm sand. Ted, my wife says, she needs help. And as I get up to scoot her back to a relatively cleaner spot, I see that she’s not bothered one bit by this development. Maybe the beach will be her happy place too. She won’t remember this trip, but we will. We will celebrate one year of her in our lives together, caked in sand. Sand in cake.