A Beach Day in September

Summer thoughts, sung to the tune of a September beach day

It’s the second Saturday in September.

I’m at the beach with a dear friend, reveling in the novelty of a September beach day. It’s not uncommon for September to have beautiful, warm weather. It’s just uncommon for me to accept the beautiful September weather as an opportunity to go the beach.

One thing that I always do when I’m at the beach is lay on my back and look up at the bright sky. Not at the sun, obviously.

Just at the blue, blue, blue sky.

As my eyes settle into the nothingness of that blue, I wait for them to appear.

 Andddddd…. There they are.  

Little cellular-looking floating strands that sneak across my vision. It’s like I’m looking through a microscope and seeing a different world.

When I blink or look in a new direction, the strands hazily shift and then resettle.

Before I googled it and found out that this experience is known as “blue field entoptic phenomenon” and is merely my white blood cells moving along my capillaries, I was a little concerned about what exactly was going on with my eyes.

Now, I’m just endlessly fascinated by it.  

And today, I am even more fascinated by it because something is different than it usually is.

Today, there are gentle, smoky tendrils dancing with those cellular strands.

Perhaps this should concern me, but instead I just feel validated.

Something has changed in me.

My eyes have been tired, with dark shadows beneath them, for at least a couple months now. I was just talking to my friend about this on our drive to the beach.

And here is my proof! These ethereal wisps in my vision are physical evidence that I’m not quite the same person that I used to be.  

I think about the summer and the ways that it pushed me physically and emotionally.

On a physical level, it was a stretching sort of summer for me.

A parasite, and then a bacterial infection in my colon. These issues resulted in gastrointestinal problems that caused significant anxiety anytime I needed to leave my own home. The ordinary things that I delight in, like going for a walk or going to a coffee shop, became stressful. The big things- reunions, cottage times with family, a road trip to Arkansas for my brother’s wedding- felt well-nigh impossible. And then there was the frustration and disappointment of spending my summer feeling fearful and stuck inside and unable to focus on anything that I cared about getting done. I carried a shakiness inside me all summer, and I did not feel like myself at all.

Even now on this lovely beach day, a couple weeks after an effective round of medication, I still have to unwillingly make the trek from the beach to bathroom twice. I remind myself to be gracious towards my body. The gastroenterologist told me that it could take up to a year for things to return to normal inside me. Although I am impatient, I also extremely grateful to be on this side of things. May to mid-August was a long stretch of not knowing what was going on inside of my body, only that it was not well and that nothing seemed to be fixing the problem.

Things are so much better now than they were.

I think about what I have learned.

I’ve learned that I’ve taken my health for granted.

That the line between productive research and ruminating is very fine for me. (Also, I should not be allowed on Reddit. That place is full of worse-case scenarios.)

That miraculously, there will usually be a relatively nearby washroom available when you really need it.

That it’s not fair to myself to allow a few uncomfortable moments to define an entire experience. (But also that those difficult moments deserve to be acknowledged as part of my reality.)

I remember how one day this summer, as I drove to my parents’ place to help with husking and freezing corn, I vowed that I was not going talk about my yucky gastro issues. I was not even going to think about them. A few hours later, I was crying to my nearly entire family about it. And you know what? It helped.

So I guess I learned that sometimes it’s just not even worth it to not cry.

The blue sky above me turns uncomfortably bright, so I turn over onto my stomach and rest my head on my arms.

Although my less-than-ideal physical state was the thread that ran through the entire summer, there were many other lessons and experiences strung along the way.

I was reminded of how grateful I am to be a part of two families who have such thoroughly pleasant times together. We went to Lion’s Head with my family this summer and to Niagara on the Lake with Ricky’s family. Lion’s Head had stunning night skies and crisp water and Niagara on the Lake had a delightful peach orchard and nieces and nephews scooting all over the place.

Some of us Kenites! Photo credit: Danette Martin

Some of us Shantzes! Photo credit: Wendy Faye Shantz

I learned that it is so special to see a younger sibling get married. And how special to gain such a lovely sister-in-law!

Kenton and Callie! They planned such a beautiful celebration.

Also, Arkansas is a beautiful, friendly, and unique place to visit. You should go!

One of my Arkansas highlights was going on a hike that took us to a cave that we had been told had a cavern and waterfall, if you were willing to venture all the way in. Ricky kept going farther in, and I kept following him until we eventually found ourselves duck-walking along, and even needing to get down on our stomachs to squeeze through some places. For some reason, I never felt scared enough to turn back. It wasn't too far of a crawl to the cavern, but we certainly felt accomplished when we made it!

The summer held many ordinary, close-to-home delightful moments too.

“Shall we swim?”

The two of us wade into the water, exclaiming over its chill and doubting our ability to get all the way in.

But somehow, we do get in- all the way in!- and we swim side by side for a bit. I wonder, have we ever actually swum together like this before? It feels new. Different. This friendship has always been such a good, good gift, but in the past year the two of us have chosen to be more intentional about it. In light of that, it feels extraordinary to be here together today. It’s something familiar and comfortable to be here together (we know when to talk and when to read and where we’ll stop for supper on the way home), while at the same time being a little tender and delicate, something that we must continue to nourish.

We enjoy the water and then work our way back to shore, with uncomfortably large schools of silvery minnows parting before us as though we are queens.

I quietly sit on the edge of my towel, knees hugged to my chest in the perfectly piercing sunlight and let myself think the thoughts I’ve been closing the door on all day.

School has started again.

Once again, there are little learners who need my support- even more of them than last year!

Once again, I can’t offer them enough. Is it that I’m not smart enough? Not loving enough? Not hardworking enough? Not willing to go the extra mile? Or am I simply caught in an impossible scenario, where nothing could ever be enough?

Is there some level of skill that I simply haven’t accessed yet? Or is this just all eternally out of reach for me?

Do my little ones like me? Am I likable? Am I a safe person? Do I believe in them?

Am I a toxic human being?

Just as I begin to dry off, I feel the urge to go back into the water.

This summer, I have enjoyed being in water in a way that feels almost child-like. I don’t feel ready for that aspect of summer to end. I need a final swim.

So I wade back into the water alone, through the chill and the flashing, jumping minnows, and I wonder, Could I float on my back for awhile?

A deep breath in, a brave leaning back…

I can. I can float.

Could I relax my muscles a little and still float?

I can.

But can I relax them even more and STILL float?

I can.

My ears are underwater, and my world reduces to muffled, sloshy silence and the wide sky above.

Could I even take some deep breaths here?

I can! I am floatier than I have ever felt before.

But in the same moment that I feel the glorious freedom of being held by the water, the delicate thread that loosely binds me to that fluidity begins to waver. I grieve the loss of this moment of weightlessness before it has even ended. Instead of allowing myself to flounder and then rest my feet on the sandy bottom, I do a quick twist in the water and begin to swim.

I swim and swim, until my shoulders ache and my calves feel like they are about to cramp up. The floating was heavenly, but this is good too- the graceful, occasionally splashy burn of pulling myself- body and mind and spirit and all- through the water.

How does anyone ever find the proper moment to end the final swim of summer?

It’s an impossible judgement call to make, so I just choose a moment and accept it as my ending.

I dry off a little, and then we pack up all our sandy stuff, dancing as deer flies nip at our legs.  

On the way home, we stop for hot dogs at a roadside stand. The bun of my hot dog is a little soggy and a little tough. Delicious!

Our evening is soft and pink all the way home.

---

The back of my sweater says What’s the best that could happen? A simple question, but it’s not easy for my mind to hope for the best instead of expecting the worst. I’m trying to learn.