skates and sunburns

The beach has a draw on me like no other place. It's claws are so deep into my skin that I constantly crave the feeling of its essence washing over me: the sounds of crashing and rolling waves, the smell of oceanic life, the way that laying on the sand feels like nothing else in the world. These things all attract me to the beach, but truly, it is the sun-worshipping which keeps me there for hours on end. Long past the point of sensible sun exposure, I lay on the sand. I use products which help me to smell like a hot coconut, and ensure that i will remember my time at the beach for a week to come while I nurse my sunburned knee pits. Yes, for me, the beach is true bliss. It makes me want to drink margaritas and rollerskate for miles. It makes me feel somehow whole inside in a way that a mountain or a desert never could. I have spent a lifetime romanticizing the beach, and yet, it never gets old. When I was a teeny little girl with pig tails and a voice pitched about like a chipmunk, my mother used to take me to the beach all the time. At that time, it was considered completely socially unacceptable to have a pale child in south Florida. Sunscreen was never used. It was a product that we did not purchase. I don't think I used the stuff until I was 12 or so actually. We would go to the beach for hours on end. I would swim and build sandcastles, and dig "swimming pools" for myself in the sand. Inevitably at the end of these sun-soaked experiences I would somehow have accumulated a quantity of sand inside of my bathing suit which could not be allowed to enter the car along with me. Therefore, I had to be publicly humiliated at the conclusion of each beach day by a full shower at the public outdoor shower just past the sand. Just how did that sand manage to infiltrate the suit? It is still a mystery. Even now, when I go swimming at the beach, I bring home enough sand to clog up my shower drain. But it has become an endearing experience. One which reaffirms my emotional involvement with the place. One which makes me feel complete. The same years of my youth revolved a great deal around rollerskating. When my mother was young, she had been on the "speed team" at the local small town skating rink. She devoted her afternoons to 400 laps most everyday. She had legs as big around as my waist now. She took me to the rink with her when I was 4, strapped wheels to me feet, and pushed me out into the middle of the floor: a place which was accepted as being the practice area. It was the first in a long line of sink-or-swim experiences that I can remember. I swam. I grew to love the feeling of smooth glide over the waxed floor of the rink. I picked up my foot and crossed over to turn corners with speed and accuracy while weaving through clusters of people who were struggling with the concept. I skated a lot. I shuffled and I skated backwards as quickly as others traveled forward. I found peace in it, a feeling very close to the meditative enjoyment I ascertained from my experiences at the beach. This was just a more active form of achieving the same end result. I haven't had skates on my feet in 5 years at least. And for a period of 5 years during college I lived nowhere near the beach. Yet lately, I feel the need to do these things again; to do them religiously; to combine them even.