And the Beach is Over

The moment you step on it, you want to get rid of your slippers. For once, you want your soles to have contact with what’s underneath. Once you are barefoot, feeling the warmth and texture, every step is a delight for your senses. If you come here at night, it is surprising to feel how cold your feet will be.

It’s nice to have full contact, you should get as intimate as possible with it, don’t let the paraphernalia of your civil act get in the way, take off your slippers, shirt, even underwear if allowed. Step on it, crawl, push your face against it, roll around and if you can, bury yourself.

Trips to the beach are characterized by the stages of sand intimacy. Especially if you get wet, the sticky situation you find yourself in may not be as enjoyable as what’s described above. After that point, you are hyper aware of the sandiness of parts of your body and getting rid of it quickly means getting wet again, only with the risk of coming back out of the water and making an accidental contact that will lead to stickiness all over again. Getting intimate comes with a cost and transience is hardly manipulable.

Put your slippers back on or step on the pavement, and the beach is over. One’s relationship with sand defines the boundaries of this space. Sand builds the walls, thresholds and sequences of my visit. The subtlety of it as an orchestrator makes it stronger when noticed. Awareness of its transience and the limited quality of this experience intensifies the senses. Something ordinary becomes intimate.