The Girl Who Stared Into Space

Image by marcolm, freedigitalphotos.net

Image by marcolm, freedigitalphotos.net

Last Sunday I went to the beach to relax with my husband and son. It was a perfect warm day, with just the right amount of sea breeze. I had warned them both earlier that I wasn’t in the mood to socialize. I just wanted to veg out with the sand in my toes and a book under my nose.

We spotted friends a few yards up the shoreline but I wasn’t in the mood to socialize. I was determined to $#% relax that afternoon, as I ever so (im)patiently explained to my loved ones. They were supposed to read their books too.

That was our plan.

I was going to $#% relax if it killed me.

I had said so-clearly-before we left the house.

The tall guy immediately took off on a walk, while the short one read his book and I read mine. “Ah summer,” I thought lazily. “This is exactly what I needed. Pure bliss.”

That blissful feeling lasted a whole 45 minutes till I turned the last page of Richard Russo’s “That Old Cape Magic” (good book, by the way) at the exact same moment the short one turned the last page of Cory Doctorow’s “For the Win.”

I handed him my iPhone to play with (hey, it was an emergency) and dug in my beach bag for another book.

Now, if I were to have my own version of “The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut” it would be “The Girl Who Never Ever EVER Wanted to Run Out of Books to Read,” as evidenced by the 18 unread books I have sitting by the bedside and the other 247 I have in various rooms around the house.

I am never ever EVER without a book to read and yet I didn’t seem to have another one in my bag. This couldn’t be happening to me! I was always prepared with an extra book (or two or three), yet there I was sitting on the beach with perfect weather and a child who was uncharacteristically tired enough to sit there contentedly playing a game on my phone with little or no interaction required on my part-and no book to read!

I honestly had no idea what to do with myself.

I was so un-used to having the luxury of a few minutes just to space out that it took a little while for this to option occur to me.

I’m so used to always having a child to entertain, a project to think about, an article to work on, a book to read, a problem to solve or a friend to talk to that the idea of sitting and staring out at the vastness of the ocean took a while to sink in.

Then it took me a while to remember how to do it. To simply sit and do nothing and allow my thoughts to wander where they may, with no specific purpose or direction.

To simply be.

To relax and enjoy the sounds of the birds and the warmth of the sunshine and the salty smell of the ocean and the gritty sand between my toes was pure bliss once I got the hang of it.

Who knows, by the end of August maybe I’ll actually be “The Girl Who Stared Into Space-and Liked It” after all.

Share your summer stories with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.comOriginally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on July 23, 2010.

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