Published: March 22, 2008 11:13 pm            

GUERRILLA MOTHERING: Everything breaks on Spring Break — no flip-flopping about it

I am beneath the hull of a great ship. Which ship, I’m not sure — and frankly, I probably won’t have time to ask before my 44 minutes and 12 seconds of Guest Internet time have counted down for the night — but it sure makes for a great ceiling, here in the Destin, Fla., library. I write to you this week from Spring Break — and never has a vacation been so aptly named. From laptops, to quiet spells, to waves on the Gulf, amped up by a warm off-shore breeze, everything has broken. Certainly every doorknob or drawer-pull in our condo — but we got a break on the price, so who am I to complain?

I’m tempted to regale you with our late check-in horror story, or tales of soda splashed around the interior of our minivan. These things definitely broke into our schedule. But I’m more attracted to the question “Why take a young family on a road trip, anyway?” Aren’t we kind of asking for it?

Well, we wanted a change of pace. Someone once told me that a change is as good as a rest, and I guess I’m just stubborn enough to believe that.

I’ve always loved the beach. Once a year, I have shoved my family into the car, and driven like mad for the coast — any coast would do, to be perfectly honest. I’m not loyal to the Gulf, although it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say we have a long-standing love affair. No, the Harmons have also done the Atlantic, sidled up to the Great Lakes, and I swear I’d drag them out to the Pacific if I could find a good deal on airfare. I love the ocean, the water, the waves so much — and I want my kids to love it, too.

Here in Destin, there are miles of white beaches and beautiful dunes. The sea oats wave in the breeze behind you, the roars and crashes of the emerald green water tempt you into the surf. Each year, my kids have spent no less than a week on some beach, and returning to Destin for the first time as a parent, I thought they would really be thrilled with this particular strip of shore-front scenery. It’s certainly the nicest beach they’ve ever visited. Clean, soft, family-friendly — what could go wrong?

The first day, we headed off dutifully to the resort’s private strip of the Gulf. The oldest and the youngest boys ran against the wind, straight into the sand, toward the sea, laughing. Not my middle child, 4-year-old, Seamus. Two steps into the sand, and he started screaming “I hear flip-flopping! I hear flip-flopping!” I don’t mean the way he screams when he’s fighting with his brothers for a Jedi Starfighter, I mean, this was pure, visceral terror.

We laughed it off because, you know — what’s a little flip-flopping between friends? We had no idea what he was talking about, or why he went from “happy” to “freaked out” in under two seconds. He lifted his tiny legs up and clung to his dad as if the Sarlacc from “Return of the Jedi” were trying to reach up and eat him. I remember a movie from junior high health class, where a kid had a flashback and fought invisible bugs away. Seamus’ “flip-flopping” protest was a little like that.

It’s been a daily thing, ever since. A combination of laughing it off and (dare I say it?) humoring him seems to be working. Stephen tried to force Seamus into the Joy of Sandcastle Building on our second day, and after about 20 minutes of tears and “flip-flopping, flip-flopping, OH!,” I rescued him, transporting him to the safety of the straw mat and beach towels.

I mentioned that everything breaks on Spring Break — did I add my neck to that list?

The night before we left, I got a horrible pain in my neck — and I do not mean the chore of packing. The drive down wasn’t exactly restful, and the first and second days on the beach, I treated myself to the kind of indulgence usually only enjoyed by mothers who are grossly pregnant, or terminally ill. I lay on my side, my neck propped up with an assortment of towels, and watched my husband and kids play (with the exception of the one who sat crying in the beach chair). Let me tell you, it was awesome. I could see why mothers with grave diseases choose to come to the beach to spend their last months with their family. It was just so peaceful. Mostly.

Seamus is 4, and already in possession of the kind of will that military drill instructors covet. He is tough. But he is still a child — my child — I asked him to come and lie down with me. For my own part, I didn’t really want to move out of my comfy beach flop position, but, you know — my kid was hurting inside. What could I do? After some coaxing, he left the safety of his chair and cuddled in my arms. A mere moment later his hand was in the sand--that same scary sand that threatened to eat him alive with its ominous “flip-flopping.”

“Doesn’t it look like sugar?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “It looks like snow.”

“Ah. Do you want to make a snowman?”

“No, Mommy,” he said calmly. There was a beat, and he asked “Why does there have to be flip-flopping?” It was the same tone of voice that he used when he asked why the goldfish died.

Since I couldn’t figure out what exactly “flip-flopping” was (days later, I narrowed it down to the squeak of his own feet in the clean, soft sand), I changed the subject. We talked about the waves rolling in, and I described them as trains chugging into the station — something that my son loves to talk about. He played along. Finally, we just lay in silence, watching the other boys throwing the football with Stephen. Peace. Quiet. Sun, water, sand. Bliss.

As we lay, I dug deeper and deeper idly into the sand, with one hand. Seamus took the sand I dug and piled it onto his shoe. “A snowman,” he said. “The sand is like sugar-snow.”

I pressed the sand into my palm, inside my fist. It was just barely wet enough to make a small, cohesive lump. It glistened, breaking apart rapidly, and I could see the lines from my hands impressed onto the sand.

And I realized — it’s not just that everything breaks on Spring Break, it’s also that many, many things stay together. This family. The heart of this little boy, overcoming his fears. He’s not unlike that clump of sand — the tighter I hold him, the more I might see my impression upon him, but is that what he really is? A tiny impression of me? Would I rather see him flake apart into sparkly, sugary snow, if that is his nature?

I am drawn to the beach for more than the water. I do not enjoy water lapping into concrete, or muddying up riverbanks. A heated pool or a hot tub is nice, but I won’t drive all day for that. No, it’s the changing nature of the ocean, the way all things built, written, or left in the sand will be gone in their own time, that I love so much. We borrow the ocean for a week at a time, to play in it, sink in it, manage it — and it gives back something that only Mother Ocean can do. A sandy beach really is like life, cliches be damned. Something inside me finds healing here — something that feels much more eternal than my 35 years would suggest I have the right to know anything about.

I know this much is true — everything breaks. Some things that are broken go on to be repurposed, like the hull of the ship above me. Other things that break, well-maybe they were never meant to be put into the shape they were forced into, in the first place. Maybe being broken isn’t the end of the world. Even here at land’s end, where soil turns to sand and dissolves into water, the world keeps turning, where humans are unable to tread. Life goes on, and we keep swimming out to greet it.

Many thanks to the kind and welcoming staff of the Destin Library, the most pleasant librarians I have ever met.

Leslea M. Harmon is a freelance writer in New Albany, a wife and the mother of three young boys. She can be reached at leslea.harmon@gmail.com or at her Web site, lmharmon.com.

        

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