The Little Boy and the Sea

Last weekend I woke up full of vim and vigor, ready to tackle anything. The possiblities swirled around endlessly for about an hour, and then I just KNEW what we were going to do: We were going to go to the beach! I loaded up the thousand-and-one things you need to have a picnic at the beach -- towels, change of clothes, picnic basket, sunscreen, shovel, bucket, hat, camera, etc., etc., etc. -- and took my son and wonderful mother-in-law to the ocean for the day. (Matt and Megan were camping on their annual father/daughter trip.)

We are blessed to live a little over a half-hour away from the Pacific Ocean. If you've seen the movie The Birds, you've seen Bodega Bay (and the town of Bodega, which is acutally inland, but has the church and school building Tippi Hedron sees and we think is on the coast in the movie -- sorry, I just went into Sonoma County tourist info mode!)... Our favorite beach is in a semi-protected cove just south of Bodega Bay, right at the mouth of the bay. (It's our favorite because of its features, and because it's where Matt proposed on a long-ago Saturday in May!)

Doran Beach is a wide, flat beach with a long shoreline and very little riptide action. There are camping facilities on one side of the access road, and sand, picnic tables, and fairly civilized bathrooms along the day-use side. (My criteria for "civilized": they have flushing toilets and stalls that close.)

The minute we got to the beach, Thomas was insistant on getting down to the ocean. He was pretty sure we were going to surf -- after all, every depiction of the ocean he's seen has had nubile young surfers riding waves -- but the Pacific Ocean is pretty doggone cold this far north, and there weren't any surfable waves, either. (Whew!) We did go in the water -- up to our ankles, which quickly turned a violent red color as the skin protested the chill -- and let him feel the ocean's powerful momentum as the waves rolled back from the shore. (I had hand in a death grip, needless to say.) My son was impervious to the cold, but my mother-in-law and I were rendered breathless a few times -- "Ahhhkkk! That's cold!" After a few minutes, my mother-in-law turned to me and said, "You know, it doesn't feel so cold anymore!" I agreed, and informed her it was probably because we were losing sensation in our lower limbs due to the extreme cold. (Nanuck of the North I am not.)

Thomas was thrilled. He was fascinated with the foghorn, and the toot of distant fishing boats turning into the cove. He was excited by the sea gulls skittering along the water's edge, and by the crash of the waves. He loved the waves, he loved the cold, he loved the sand. He loved it all -- right up to the moment that he flung his shovel in the ocean and realized we weren't going to "go get it, please."

Oh, the misery!

There was much tearful pleading, followed by promises to be good, followed by more tears and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The shovel floated, a tiny yellow speck on the heaving bosom of the mighty ocean, just at the point where the waves gathered and raced inland. We could see it, we could want to reach it, but it was just out of the range of possibility.

Tough love is hard, but there was no way I was going in the Pacific for a plastic shovel. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mom take a step in the water, torn between her grandson's tears and the Pacific Ocean, and I told her (in the most loving way possible) that I'd have to think long and hard about going in after HER, so she'd better not try to get the doggone shovel, either!

Our watchful patience was rewarded about fifteen loooonnnnngggg waves later when the ocean finally gave back the shovel, and Thomas seemed to have a new-found respect for the wide expanse of water.

There was no wind to speak of that day -- a rarity at the coast -- and the sky was overcast and milky grey, echoed in the darker grey of the ocean. There was some sort of mass kelp suicide action going on -- each wave was almost solid with the stringy stuff, and as far as you could see the shore was littered with the greenish flotsam. When you stood in the path of a wave, the strings wrapped around your feet and tugged at you, leaving tendrils stuck to your legs and bits of leafy material wedged amongst your toes.

After the Shovel Incident we made our way inland a bit and began to work together on a giant sandcastle project, complete with towers, moats, fencing and pits (with a secret tunnel to go between them!) and got as thoroughly filthy as it is possible to get at the ocean -- sand in our hair, sand in our toes, sand under every nail and in every fold of clothing, no matter how small. Other beach visitors passed by walking dogs, chasing children, gathering shells; but our world was defined by a miniature keep and a bucket filled with damp sand.

After all that building, we were hungry for our picnic. Mom and I had Brie cheese and fresh French bread, salami, turkey slices, strawberries, and Hostess cupcakes (chocolate AND orange flavors!), and Thomas had his standby lunch of peanut butter sandwich and chips -- and then we had time to walk up the beach for a bit and build another castle a little closer to the water. One rogue wave came lapping right up to the moat, and Nona and Thomas took it upon themselves to guard the fort with outstretched arms and firmly planted feet: "Stay back, Ocean!" The seaweedy stuff made an excellent fence for Castle #2, and the bits of shell we'd found made the turrets seem to have windows to the sea.

As we drove away, Thomas began campaigning to return the next day ("Aw, c'mon, please??") -- a sure sign of a good time. That only lasted for a few miles, and then the benefits of being outdoors and running up and down the sand started kicking in... and he was content to look out the window, watching apple orchards flash past.

Our final stop was to pick up some freshly picked Gravenstein apples from a roadside stand just outside of Sebastopol, which I turned into a little over 20 cups of sliced apples for apple pies, crisps, or sauce. (If you haven't had a Gravenstein apple pie, think of your favorite apple pie recipe and imagine it five times as good... okay, now double that... and you're close to what we had!)

That night I tucked a freshly-bathed boy into his bed and kissed him goodnight, then fell into bed myself, worn out. When I closed my eyes I could still see the sea surge and swell, and my son's face as he took it all in. I could hear the crash of the surf and the cry of the gulls, and Thomas's sweet voice asking if we could come back tomorrow. I could feel the tug of the waves on my legs and the tug of my son's expression in my heart.

It was a perfect outing on a perfect day, and I will treasure the memories for many years to come. Plus, we still have the shovel! Whoo hoo!