Beach Day

H&M shirt
H&M swimsuit
Sezane tote (similar)
Maris Pearl Co. bag (c/o) (similar)
Birkenstock sandals
& Other Stories sunglasses
Mango hat
Stella & Dot bracelet
Stella & Dot rings
Daisy London earrings (c/o)
Location: Patricia Beach – Manitoba

I am not, and never have been, a beach girl. I can appreciate a beautiful beach under exactly the right circumstances – Kamini Beach on the island of Hydra, with lounge chairs ready and waiting, as well as a charming restaurant serving wine and treats, comes to mind. But visiting an ordinary beach close to home is rarely high on my summer to-do list.

Beaches in Manitoba are just beaches – water adjacent strips of sand and rock, usually with a single, poorly maintained bathroom somewhere nearby. (The one at this beach in particular smelled so foul, from so far away that I didn’t dare darken its doorstep.) They have a kind of natural beauty, if overgrown prairie grass and sand appeal to you, but little else to recommend them. I’m not an enthusiastic swimmer, so I usually take a book (or two.) But I could just as easily read at home, and avoid bringing sand into my apartment, so that’s generally my preference.

But on my recent week of vacation, I wanted to go somewhere – anywhere at all. A party without cake is just a meeting, and a holiday without an adventure is nothing more than time off. Travel, however, remains more or less out of the question, with the Quarantine Act in effect until at least September thirtieth. My options were, at best, limited: basically, we could go to the beach, or we could go to a different beach.

Naturally, we picked the beach.

My beach day did not work out exactly as I’d envisionned. We arrived early enough to beat the crowds, but not to beat the sun. The sky was cloudless, the weather sweltering, shadows everywhere. And the crowds did arrive at a rate that frankly, I found astonishing – after about an hour and a half, social distancing became totally impossible. So we packed up and went home, significantly earlier than planned. Honestly? I was bored, anyway. I’ve never understood the appeal of spending hours laying on a towel on the sand, no matter how beautiful the weather. It turns out that I still don’t. But this beach day was my 2020 holiday. And the alternative was no holiday at all, so I took it gladly, imperfections be damned.

I never did have to write a How I Spent my Summer Vacation paper when I was in school. It seemed a shame, at the time, since my family always travelled, even if our destinations weren’t always exciting or glamourous – the year we went to De Smet, South Dakota was a particular low point. But even that year, I had something to say for my summer vacation… this is the first year of my life when I can sum up the answer to the question of how I spent my summer vacation in a single sentence: “I went to the beach.”

I know I’m not alone in this. But I also know that in some places, some travel is possible. So tell me, how have you spent your summer vacation this year?

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