Day at the Beach
Today the children requested a trip to the beach and, since the weather was accomodating, I sighed, gathered up some things to keep myself engaged, and we loaded into the car. I was not looking forward to it, mostly because I seem to have developed a really bad allergy to loudmouth helicopter mothers who follow their children around clucking at them at top volume or who need to yell urgently at them from long distances, yet from very short distances from my ear.
I quickly realized I left the quilt on the sofa. I had no quilt, but a chair and two pillows, a novel that I only read at bedtime and which I highly doubted I could read during daylight hours, another book, about speed cleaning, a small spiral journal with lists of things for Jaden's birthday party, a large spiral journal with lists of things for our camping trip and, holy of holies, a cellular phone. I even had a ten dollar bill.
I planted myself under a cedar tree for shade between a squatting Mexican man in white sneakers and an unassuming mother on a tiny blanket with yogurt. It was cold in the shade and I was having a big giant debate with myself over which was worse, to stay too cold or to move to the sun and rue the day, when the yogurt mother began to smoke. I gazed at her. She could have been a grandmother. It was hard to tell. I tried to make myself like being next to a smoking person, to hearken back to the days when everyone smoked around me and it was a very summer smell, like barbecue and salt water. I decided to move my chair.
I put my chair by the children and their giant plastic box of sandcastle making junk, all of which I had personalized with our last name with a blue Sharpie right before we had left. I had a concept that there might be fisticuffs if we were to try to remove a shovel from a stranger without proof of ownership. The children immediately decided that they wanted to move ten feet behind my chair because they were done making sandcastles and were now going to embark on burying themselves completely in sand. They went behind me. My vista now included only other people's children.
I found a good one to watch. It was a tiny little girl, with a big headful of white blonde curls. She was about one or two and wearing a pink bathing suit and she had no fear. I could tell immediately that she had older siblings as she threw herself into the water, rolled in the sand, jumped into holes, wandered all over, filled buckets, splashed. I quickly set about to discovering who the mother was of this tiny little person, this baby who could do nicely as the baby on an adoption brochure. I decided that the mother was the woman in the black bathing suit with matching big black bathing suit pajama pants and some kind of matching bonnet. I had never seen such a getup. Her hair was up on her head behind the bonnet and she sat in her chair chewing gum, open mouthed, watching the pink girl wander all over. She did not wear sunglasses. She did not have on jewelry other than a very simple wedding band. She did not have manicures or pedicures or snacks. She just chewed her gum, open mouthed, smiling nearly always, occasionally glancing at the baby. She was the opposite of the helicopter mothers, yet not in the category you would think, some kind of cell phone engrossed young thing. She was in her thirties and as more and more children seemed to be drawn into her center, I decided she was Catholic. She had to be awfully Catholic. I couldn't count the number of children in her world. She did not ever fret, ever raise her voice, she really never even spoke. Her language with her children seemed to be silent smiling and the gum chewing, it just went up and down up and down, sometimes she added more gum. I wondered if I could teach myself to smile using my teeth if only I took up a gum chewing habit. Maybe that would be like training wheels for teeth smiling.
I was mesmerized. I was held rapt by the utter hands off approach she took to her parenting. She never looked up and panicked, she never made a face, always holding the same exact facial expression, never looking flustered, never rolling her eyes. She never jumped up to grab the baby or to say "We don't eat sand" or "Where are your shoes?" She just sat and chewed and chewed and smiled and smiled.
At one point she stood and walked to the water's edge and just stood there. I heard her telling her children fifteen minutes, then ten, then five. She rocked back and forth on her hip, sliding her bare foot over and over through the same foot sized smooth sand patch. I saw the baby get into her purse. She didn't notice. I saw the baby get out the gum. She didn't notice. I saw the baby get a piece of gum. She didn't notice. I saw the baby eat the piece of gum. She never noticed. I waited for her to see the baby chewing something and go what the hell is in your mouth? Or to go "Oh, little Sally got into my purse!" but she either never noticed, or, in her world, there is no exclamation to be made, for anything at all. The lifeguard blew his whistle and yelled "Kids! Stop throwing sand!" It was her children who were throwing the sand. She looked up at the whistle, at the lifeguards, at the command to stop throwing sand and her facial expression did not change. She did not chastise her children or roll her eyes at stupid protocol. She did not say "See? I told you to stop throwing that sand!" or "Yes, let's not throw sand, darling" or "Stop throwing that god damned sand!" and the children continued to throw the sand and the lifeguards did not repeat their admonition and the mother did not say a single word. I couldn't stop marvelling.
Then I saw that the mother hadn't seen or noticed or worried about the baby in a very long time because the baby was in the big section of water marked DO NOT ENTER! I looked up at the lifeguards. They were looking at the baby. I looked at the baby. There was a man stalking the baby like a samaritan trying to leash a stray feral animal. The mother was putting all her beach chairs away. She was getting everyone their towels. She was chewing gum. The man followed the baby. The baby didn't seem to like this, sensed trouble, ran from the man down the beach, past me. The man reached for the baby's hand. The baby took his hand and stopped running, the outstretched hand changing her mind about the offerer's intention. I heard the man tell the baby that they would find her mother. I knew who the mother was. I did not tell the man. I looked at the mother. She not only had not noticed her baby being led off by a stranger, but was not even thinking of the baby at all, just packing up her belongings. I did not tell the mother. I sat in the middle and waited to see what would happen. I was pretty interested in what the outcome would be. I hoped that something would happen that would crack her gum chewing smile. I wanted some sort of proof of her humanness, or at least that she possessed a central nervous system.
I watched the mother until she remembered that she had a baby. I watched her look for her. I watched her realize that she didn't see her, that she was missing. I watched her continue to chew the gum, I watched her face stay EXACTLY THE SAME, no matter how long the baby was missing, no matter how many extra seconds had passed at the deep lake. I watched her body movements stay the same. I turned back to the lifeguard station to see the man coming back with the baby. Evidently one of the baby's many siblings happened upon the scene and informed the man that the baby was one of their clan. The man walked toward the mother, who chewed her gum and smiled broadly at him. "Is this your baby?" he said. "Yes," she said. She took the child's hand. The man walked away. No relief, no thank you, nothing. Like he was giving her a flyer for Tony's Pizza. She doused the baby in the lake to rid her of her sandy coating and scooped her up for the first time in all those hours at the beach. Then, the little girl screamed and cried, at being restrained. I craned my neck to watch the mother and her brood leave. I stood to count them all as they began the walk up the hill. It was the one smiling gum chewing mother and ten children, not one of them a day over 11.
I turned behind myself and told my buried children that we were leaving. The show was over for me, personally, and I believed there may be an encore in the parking lot, so I gathered up my books and my pillows and my chair and told the kids they'd better get it in gear or they would be living at the beach and scooted up the hill. As I entered the parking lot I saw a large Ford econo van, the kind churhes have for their daycares. I knew that was my casual non-helicopter mother of ten, who lives in a world where she gets away with everything like teflon magic and knows nothing and never raises her voice and never yells or scolds or rolls her eyes or hurts feelings. She has ten children. She is a very patient, smiling, soft-spoken, gentle mother. And I saw her today. I was mesmerized.
I quickly realized I left the quilt on the sofa. I had no quilt, but a chair and two pillows, a novel that I only read at bedtime and which I highly doubted I could read during daylight hours, another book, about speed cleaning, a small spiral journal with lists of things for Jaden's birthday party, a large spiral journal with lists of things for our camping trip and, holy of holies, a cellular phone. I even had a ten dollar bill.
I planted myself under a cedar tree for shade between a squatting Mexican man in white sneakers and an unassuming mother on a tiny blanket with yogurt. It was cold in the shade and I was having a big giant debate with myself over which was worse, to stay too cold or to move to the sun and rue the day, when the yogurt mother began to smoke. I gazed at her. She could have been a grandmother. It was hard to tell. I tried to make myself like being next to a smoking person, to hearken back to the days when everyone smoked around me and it was a very summer smell, like barbecue and salt water. I decided to move my chair.
I put my chair by the children and their giant plastic box of sandcastle making junk, all of which I had personalized with our last name with a blue Sharpie right before we had left. I had a concept that there might be fisticuffs if we were to try to remove a shovel from a stranger without proof of ownership. The children immediately decided that they wanted to move ten feet behind my chair because they were done making sandcastles and were now going to embark on burying themselves completely in sand. They went behind me. My vista now included only other people's children.
I found a good one to watch. It was a tiny little girl, with a big headful of white blonde curls. She was about one or two and wearing a pink bathing suit and she had no fear. I could tell immediately that she had older siblings as she threw herself into the water, rolled in the sand, jumped into holes, wandered all over, filled buckets, splashed. I quickly set about to discovering who the mother was of this tiny little person, this baby who could do nicely as the baby on an adoption brochure. I decided that the mother was the woman in the black bathing suit with matching big black bathing suit pajama pants and some kind of matching bonnet. I had never seen such a getup. Her hair was up on her head behind the bonnet and she sat in her chair chewing gum, open mouthed, watching the pink girl wander all over. She did not wear sunglasses. She did not have on jewelry other than a very simple wedding band. She did not have manicures or pedicures or snacks. She just chewed her gum, open mouthed, smiling nearly always, occasionally glancing at the baby. She was the opposite of the helicopter mothers, yet not in the category you would think, some kind of cell phone engrossed young thing. She was in her thirties and as more and more children seemed to be drawn into her center, I decided she was Catholic. She had to be awfully Catholic. I couldn't count the number of children in her world. She did not ever fret, ever raise her voice, she really never even spoke. Her language with her children seemed to be silent smiling and the gum chewing, it just went up and down up and down, sometimes she added more gum. I wondered if I could teach myself to smile using my teeth if only I took up a gum chewing habit. Maybe that would be like training wheels for teeth smiling.
I was mesmerized. I was held rapt by the utter hands off approach she took to her parenting. She never looked up and panicked, she never made a face, always holding the same exact facial expression, never looking flustered, never rolling her eyes. She never jumped up to grab the baby or to say "We don't eat sand" or "Where are your shoes?" She just sat and chewed and chewed and smiled and smiled.
At one point she stood and walked to the water's edge and just stood there. I heard her telling her children fifteen minutes, then ten, then five. She rocked back and forth on her hip, sliding her bare foot over and over through the same foot sized smooth sand patch. I saw the baby get into her purse. She didn't notice. I saw the baby get out the gum. She didn't notice. I saw the baby get a piece of gum. She didn't notice. I saw the baby eat the piece of gum. She never noticed. I waited for her to see the baby chewing something and go what the hell is in your mouth? Or to go "Oh, little Sally got into my purse!" but she either never noticed, or, in her world, there is no exclamation to be made, for anything at all. The lifeguard blew his whistle and yelled "Kids! Stop throwing sand!" It was her children who were throwing the sand. She looked up at the whistle, at the lifeguards, at the command to stop throwing sand and her facial expression did not change. She did not chastise her children or roll her eyes at stupid protocol. She did not say "See? I told you to stop throwing that sand!" or "Yes, let's not throw sand, darling" or "Stop throwing that god damned sand!" and the children continued to throw the sand and the lifeguards did not repeat their admonition and the mother did not say a single word. I couldn't stop marvelling.
Then I saw that the mother hadn't seen or noticed or worried about the baby in a very long time because the baby was in the big section of water marked DO NOT ENTER! I looked up at the lifeguards. They were looking at the baby. I looked at the baby. There was a man stalking the baby like a samaritan trying to leash a stray feral animal. The mother was putting all her beach chairs away. She was getting everyone their towels. She was chewing gum. The man followed the baby. The baby didn't seem to like this, sensed trouble, ran from the man down the beach, past me. The man reached for the baby's hand. The baby took his hand and stopped running, the outstretched hand changing her mind about the offerer's intention. I heard the man tell the baby that they would find her mother. I knew who the mother was. I did not tell the man. I looked at the mother. She not only had not noticed her baby being led off by a stranger, but was not even thinking of the baby at all, just packing up her belongings. I did not tell the mother. I sat in the middle and waited to see what would happen. I was pretty interested in what the outcome would be. I hoped that something would happen that would crack her gum chewing smile. I wanted some sort of proof of her humanness, or at least that she possessed a central nervous system.
I watched the mother until she remembered that she had a baby. I watched her look for her. I watched her realize that she didn't see her, that she was missing. I watched her continue to chew the gum, I watched her face stay EXACTLY THE SAME, no matter how long the baby was missing, no matter how many extra seconds had passed at the deep lake. I watched her body movements stay the same. I turned back to the lifeguard station to see the man coming back with the baby. Evidently one of the baby's many siblings happened upon the scene and informed the man that the baby was one of their clan. The man walked toward the mother, who chewed her gum and smiled broadly at him. "Is this your baby?" he said. "Yes," she said. She took the child's hand. The man walked away. No relief, no thank you, nothing. Like he was giving her a flyer for Tony's Pizza. She doused the baby in the lake to rid her of her sandy coating and scooped her up for the first time in all those hours at the beach. Then, the little girl screamed and cried, at being restrained. I craned my neck to watch the mother and her brood leave. I stood to count them all as they began the walk up the hill. It was the one smiling gum chewing mother and ten children, not one of them a day over 11.
I turned behind myself and told my buried children that we were leaving. The show was over for me, personally, and I believed there may be an encore in the parking lot, so I gathered up my books and my pillows and my chair and told the kids they'd better get it in gear or they would be living at the beach and scooted up the hill. As I entered the parking lot I saw a large Ford econo van, the kind churhes have for their daycares. I knew that was my casual non-helicopter mother of ten, who lives in a world where she gets away with everything like teflon magic and knows nothing and never raises her voice and never yells or scolds or rolls her eyes or hurts feelings. She has ten children. She is a very patient, smiling, soft-spoken, gentle mother. And I saw her today. I was mesmerized.