Sitting under an umbrella on the shoreline is an incredible experience and it is not just watching the beach walkers passing by, or the lifeguards doing their jobs, or all the seminude bodies lying around trying to tan their hides... it is the enormity of the ocean itself and its incredible power... a power that never subsides although it might slow down at low tide... but it never quits.
There is a sense of FREEDOM at the beach that is not like the freedom where you live. It is a seagull type of freedom that allows you to float and drift on the currents of the wind as if you have no cares or worries in the world, other than relaxing and enjoying nature's warmth and beauty.
There is a sense that time itself slows down and even though it moves just as fast as any time before, it just seems to take it time passing by. Sometimes you think that time is being pushed by the wind that oftentimes is still so that we can feel what the heat and humidity really feels like.
If you are a body surfer, there is a sense that the best waves are yet to come but the ones so far have been worth the ride. There is no sense of heat, no sense of currents, and no sense of danger that might be lurking around under the water. There is only you and the water and your tired, salty eyes looking for the next wave to ride. You are oblivious to everything else.
There is a sense of serene relaxation as you recline your seat back as far as it can go and just lay there, letting the sounds around you flow in and around and through you as if you were some specter and not a solid being. The moving sand stings your skin, but you feel nothing except the sounds of the waves and their rhythms as the water hits and creeps up the sand.
There is no sense of urgency at all during the entire day that you are out under your umbrella... or, in the shower you take as you get cleaned up to go out to dinner. I mean, you are on vacation, so why cook? However, once you leave your condo and your resort and enter the street trying to blend into the traffic, reality hits you... and the calmness turns to gentle anxiety because you know how to get to the restaurant you have selected and you know what lane you need to be in and how long you have to put up with this nonsense.
This has been your routine for over 30 years and each of those years, you have managed to spend at least one week at Myrtle Beach, and more often than not two weeks. There was only one year that you spent no time at the beach and that was due to COVID... even when they warned against it the second year you went anyway.
There is something MAGICAL about being at Myrtle Beach during the summer months.
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