Beach People

What can be more fun than to park set out your beach chair, haul out a big bottle of frozen water to thaw in the hot sun, and open a really good book! (In my case it was the wonderful "My Life in France," by Julia Child.)

I love watching the people. The children are a hoot.

This pair of boys kept building a sand castle in the same spot.

And then boom! The big waves would knock it over! And they'd start again. (They reminded me of the folks who repeatedly build on the same spot after the same national disaster has wiped out their home.)

I loved this little guy. He'd just pick up things and throw them. All of about four feet!

Color is everywhere, but nowhere more vibrant than in the toys on the beach...

And in the bright colored swimsuits!

The pickers were in force when I went to the beach early on our final morning. At low tide all the shells that so hurt our feet in the water were high on the beach and every early riser in Myrtle Beach was picking. Young, old, and everything in between. It was my best shell year ever.

Shells. there's a lesson in them, I think, about the beauty of imperfection. For the most part, we all go for the perfect shell. The scallop that is unchipped, the unbroken half clam shell. In that category of perfect, there are variations -- black, white, orange, multicolored shells; the large and the minuscule.

We pick, sort and reject with a cold eye.

Yet the imperfect shells bring their own beauty to the mix. They've lived hard, and those cracks and sharp edges represent a struggle, as they were tossed relentlessly in the surging surf.

I found a part of a conch shell cousin. Brilliant orange. Beautiful. Was it any less so because it was only partially intact? I don't think so. I found it perfection its own way.

People are like that, too -- or can be. Some just glow with perfection, looking as though they have never been tossed about, quite possibly shielding their past behind their beauty.

Others are less perfect, yet to the eye that is willing to see, reveal a great beauty.

Yes, I was quite happy.

Of course there were other interesting people too -- our neighbors at the hotel from Montreal, the show people (one fellow, who was rather tall had the largest nostrils I'd ever seen; I didn't want to stare, but I couldn't help it.) The show organizer Morgan, whom I called Morgana La Fey, so named because of her similarities to the Morgana of Arthurian legend.

In an upcoming post I'll introduce you to some people we stopped to see on the way back. Myrtle Beach to Lansing via Canada!