Never Enjoy Leaving the Beach

On Labor Day, the mood was blue under crisp blue skies near Montauk, NY.

The waves were nice low riders, you could spend an afternoon in them.

Stand in waist deep water, see the swell rise up, shout it out, jump in, feel the exhilarating push of the wave and then you're riding it. You're riding it!  Short ones, seconds of joy at most, but you ride all the way to the far edge to end belly on the sand, surely smiling.  Get up and do it all over again.

You could sit in a chair on the sand and watch a few kids wild with excitement building something, a castle, a fort, or just digging and digging.  One auburn-haired kid requests to be buried up to his neck. 

You could look out and see the clean, bright light shimmering on the waves.  Just stare at it, and maybe not think anything.

You knew it was the last official beach day, and for most people, the last beach day until next year.

Some people had their cars already packed to the windows, bikes stacked on the back rack, boogie boards slid in at the end, in the beach parking lot.  They were going straight home from the sand.

Near the end of the day, pink light on the tips of vibrant green dune grasses, I heard one young boy bawling, we all heard him, up and down the beach.

He was completely distraught.  His painful sobs pounded over the surf.

"No! No! No, Mommy no!"

His mother had his hand, her arm stiff but sympathetic, and was almost literally dragging his collapsed body off the sand.  He just didn't want to it to end. 

One of my friends said, "It's ok kid, we're all crying inside."