Alexandersmap

    Tag: Beach walk

    • A Walk on Plum Island Beach

      There are different ways to walk a beach. Some walks are meditative, some are merely workouts, and some are clearly meant for people-watching. The reasons why we walk lead us eventually to where and when. Each beach offers a new lens through which we may see the world and ourselves.

      My bride is a beach bunny at heart, and it turns out our pup is too. We’ve been taking her to a local New Hampshire beach for long walks and she’s grown more courageous with each bold step. She’s no water dog and won’t plunge in like our Labrador retriever would, but she’ll delightfully chase waves and bite at the sea foam. Her joy is ours, and walks on the beach have become a more frequent way of getting her away from the permanent mud season of never-winter-as-it-once-was that is our new reality.

      If Hampton Beach is a long, flat walk on firm sand, Plum Island Beach offers an experience more like Cape Cod National Seashore: soft dune sand plunging steeply in places to the ocean breakers. The dunes aren’t nearly as tall as Cape Cod, but the walk can be just as wonderful. On one end is the turbulent mouth of the Merrimack River, on the other are the dunes and swirling sandbars of Plum Island State Park reaching out into Ipswich Bay. In between are rows of homes ranging from beach shacks to McMansion: beach edition luxury homes. As with everywhere exclusive, money determines the future state of the real estate here. But Mother Nature has a say too.

      Plum Island is not an easy place to walk nor an easy place to live compared to other beaches in the area. Just as wealthy homeowners in the Hamptons on Long Island struggle with beach erosion and the fickle protectiveness of sand dunes, the people who dare to build homes on Plum Island face the same challenges. One day you’re living in paradise, the next you’re living through a nightmare of storm surge and wave action. It’s an audacious act to live in such places, emphasized with insurance rates that discourage the casual investor. It takes disposable income to have such homes in such places as this.

      Plum Island State Park prohibits dogs, so a walk to the end with the pup was out of the question, but there was plenty of beach available for our power trio. Walking towards the Merrimack River, we met a couple walking three dogs of their own. As soon as they said their dog’s name I knew it was a locally-famous author but kept it to myself. We all seek out the beach for our own reasons, and often it’s to get away from who we are further inland. We had a small reunion on the return and went our separate ways.

      Every beach has its own story to tell, just as each beach walker does. I wonder sometimes why we aren’t walking more beaches, and promised myself to add beaches to the collection of mountain summits, waterfalls and historic sites I’m collecting on my life experience list. The time bucket for such activity is now, isn’t it? We must venture out while we’re blessed with good health and a desire to do something with it. Perhaps we’ll see you out there too?

    • Sand, Snow, Sea and Shells

      Winter brings seclusion to the beach.  After all, who’s really lingering on a beach in January anyway?  Well, I am when the opportunity presents itself.  I’m not a beach person in that I don’t see any point in lying on the sand while the sun cooks your skin.  And yet I’m a beach person in that I love to walk on the beach, especially near the surf, and especially when I may find solitude.  Since I’m not wealthy enough to own a private beach, my options for solitude are early in the morning and in the off-season.  A beach in the Northeast doesn’t get much more off-season than January.

      January beach time brings together seclusion, sand, snow, sea and shells.  If that’s not an attractive alliteration I’m not sure what is.  I seek out solitude because I like to think, and I like to re-charge my batteries through nature and walking.  I welcome the occasional sniff from a dog running free with it’s human.  I take a picture that strikes my fancy.  Sometimes I pick up a shell or driftwood or sea glass.  I try to get my steps in for the day.  And I think.  Being alone with your thoughts seems to be less of a thing nowadays.  People escape into their devices, their TV shows, politics, celebrity gossip or sports.  Some escape into a bottle or religion or drugs or exercise programs.  I’m not interested in escape.  I’m interested in enjoying the ride while I’m on this earth.  Now.  Not deferred to some retirement or vacation in the future.

      Tim Ferriss calls this living the lifestyle of the New Rich.  Time and mobility.  I’ve tried over the last decade to build my career around this NR lifestyle.  While I haven’t pulled off the rich part, I’ve generally lived in such a way that I’ve had the freedom to do what I want to do most of the time.  Generally that means being able to see my kids play sports or attending other milestones in their lives, but sometimes it means taking a walk along a cliff in Portugal, or seeing a sunrise from the easternmost point in Newfoundland, or taking a walk on the beach on Plum Island on a random Tuesday.

      Through Ferriss and Ryan Holiday I’ve found myself reading more stoicism lately.  There are three phrases in Latin that I’m trying to embrace.  Amor fati, or “a love of fate”, Memento mori, or “remember that you have to die” and of course the old standby Carpe Diem, or “seize the day”.  Each day I’m trying to live a complete life.  Some days I accomplish more than in others, and I’m always seeking improvement.  Life, like the sand, shells and snow on a beach, is fleeting and ever-changing.  All we’re guaranteed is now.  So if now is all I’ve got, I might as well walk on a beach in January.