For most of my adult life going to the beach has meant one thing; piling a couple of chairs, my beach bag containing towels, sunscreen, snacks, crossword puzzles and maybe a radio along with a small cooler packed with drinks and fruit and heading off to the military beach at the Dam Neck Naval Base in Virginia Beach. In fact, of all the beaches had to pleasure to sit on, that stretch of sand is my favorite. What has made it so is for the most part the fact was its convenient location; never more than twenty or thirty minutes from my home for a large part of my adult life.
That changed seven years ago when we moved inland to Central Virginia. Since then, our trips to the beach have been so infrequent as to fall in the “rare” category. At first the beauty of the Blue Ridge almost perpetually in view through my daily routine seems to have overshadowed the call of the sea. Then, just a few weeks ago after seeing some photos of my youngest grandson, Kaspar, playing in the surf, I turned to Dave and said, “I need a beach fix!” The mountains may be pretty but that feeling of majesty just doesn’t compare with the incredible feeling you get bobbing in the waves.
The next time I spoke to my friend Vanya on our bi-weekly FaceTime calls, I asked if we could come spend a weekend with them. It’d been too long a time since we’d seen each other in person anyway so the date was set.
So that is how I came to find myself sitting in a beach chair, burrowing my toes in the cool sand as I watched the waves roll in and the dolphins play on the horizon. It didn’t take me long to realize that I wasn’t just coming to the beach as much as I’d come home to a place that is as deeply rooted in my heart as my home town. While many things have changed dramatically outside the gate of Dam Neck, that stretch of beach has remained pretty much unchanged over the past thirty-six years. It is as familiar to my as my childhood back yard, with so many memories of the hundreds of hours spent in this beautiful place.
The first time I remember going to the beach at Dam Neck was when Maggie was an infant. Dave had been sent home from his deployment on compassionate leave following his father’s death and he was able to meet her for the first time at six weeks instead of six months old at the end of his cruise. In a moment similar to Kunta Kinte presenting his son to something greater than himself, one of our first outings as a family was to take Maggie to the beach. Even though it was March, we’d been treated to an unusually warm, sunny day, perfect for a walk on the beach.
The next time I found a photo history of our time at Dam Neck was a few months before Andy was born when Dave’s Mom was visiting. Maggie was walking by then and took great delight in watching her shadow follow her along the sand.
Sadly, I don’t have pictures of beach trips that followed. I wish I had a couple of photos of Andy as a baby at the beach even though I know we took him there when he was just a few weeks old. The logistics of keeping two little children corralled at the beach required my full attention so looking through a viewfinder was just not practical.
The beach was always a cost free, safe place to take the kids and tire them out when I was alone with them. And, when they were little, that was a lot of the time. It was a place to meet up with friends, most of them young Navy wives like myself, alone with a child or two. After a day at the beach, those kids tended to sleep really well; a real perk!
I feel so very lucky to have had such a beautiful place to call home for so long and that it is a place I can return to and enjoy. I am also blessed with good friends who are happy to give me a place to stay when I need a beach fix. That’s a combination that is hard to beat!