Pax in terra

I'm mobile blogging right now,  southbound on I-95. No, I'm not driving. Punctuation is the hardest thing about writing on a phone. Punctuation and sudden stops.

*****

We're listening to a road trip mix now. I should probably turn on the radio to see if we've bombed Pyongyang yet, or if North Korean missiles are en route to Seattle,  or if the Klan has descended on Silver Spring. But I'd rather listen to Erasure.

"Weight of the World." How appropriate.

*****

We're about 45 minutes away from home now. It's hard to believe that I woke up at the beach this morning. 

*****

It's Sunday morning , and we're home, so I'm writing on a real keyboard. Anyway, about the beach. We alternate vacations--we visit a new city one year, and then spend a week at the beach the next. It would be nice to do both every year, of course, but we're lucky that we can go away every year, no matter where it is. 

A city vacation is different from a beach vacation because you don't really fall into a routine in a new city. At least, we don't. We fill up every day and night, determined to see as much of our new city as possible. At the beach, though, we establish a routine on day 1, and by day 3, it's like we've always lived in Avalon, and always will. 

One common element of the beach and the city vacations is the early-morning outings with my now 12-year-old son. He and I are both naturally early risers, and we like to go out and do things while the rest of the family sleeps. In the city, this usually means exploratory walks around whatever neighborhood we happen to be staying in, with a stop for coffee and breakfast, which we deliver to my husband and older son just as they're waking up. At the beach, it means morning bike rides. 

Taken on Tuesday morning. It rained all day on
Monday and rain seemed likely on Tuesday,
too. But it turned out to be a sunny day. 

We usually ride for a few miles; sometimes south to Stone Harbor and the shops on 96th Street; and sometimes north to the center of town in Avalon. Sometimes we go farther--to 122nd Street, and Stone Harbor Point; or to Townsend's Inlet, across the bridge from Sea Isle City. Seven Mile Island is as flat as a prairie, so even with wind resistance, a long ride is pretty easy and pleasant, if you like to ride. Not everyone does. My whole family goes to the beach (we stay in separate places) and my sister suggested to my nephew, also an early riser, that he should join us one morning. He scoffed. "What am I, Lance Armstrong? Do you know how far they go?" Not that far if you're a serious rider, but I guess pretty far on a beach cruiser in August. 

The water was perfect last week. Slightly rough surf and a bit of an undertow, but so warm that you could just walk in, and no jellyfish at all. I've never been to the Caribbean, but everyone who has been complains that it ruins them for the Atlantic Ocean on the northeastern coast of the United States. This means that I should never go to the Caribbean, because I never want to not want to swim in the Atlantic Ocean. 

This boy was exactly as I'd have expected him to be in the surf. Knocked down by a wave and scooped up by his father before the current could pull him under, he spluttered and struggled and yelled "Put me down! There's another one coming!" Surrounded by a gang of 9- or 10-year old boogie boarders, he stood his ground, yelling "You guys gotta get outta my way!" And they did, shaking their heads and wondering who the crazy little kid was. 

*****

During city vacations, it seems like the world continues to do what it does, and I'm just as attuned to current events as I am at home. I followed election and Olympics coverage in Chicago in 2012 and Boston in 2016; and in 2014, even South Korean news media was covering the events in Ferguson, MO. ("What's happening in your country?" our tour guide asked us.) At the beach, though, the only news I seem to hear concerns the weather and the water temperature and the movement of the tides.  Somewhere around Wednesday or Thursday, it started to emerge that war with North Korea might be a real and actual threat; and then on Saturday, we watched "white nationalists" and Klansmen and neo-Nazis converge on normally peaceful Charlottesville.  

And so, as we drove further south, over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, into Maryland, toward Baltimore and finally nearing the Capital Beltway, the world once again continued to do what it does, and it felt less like a day that had started at the beach. There's only one kind of peace that matters, anyway, and it doesn't come from the ocean. Not even from the ocean. It's Sunday afternoon now.