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WHY THE BEACH IS A BUMMER

By ROXANE GAY
NY Times Published: JULY 26, 2014

IT is summer, and so, we are repeatedly reminded, it is time for the beach — beach bodies, beach reads, fruity beach drinks in tall glasses festooned with tiny paper umbrellas and fruits skewered on tiny plastic swords. This is an ideal beach of hot sun, warm sand, crystal-clear water that leaves your skin salted. But it is all too often a mirage.

I have known beaches.

When I was a child, my parents took my brothers and me to Port-au-Prince during the summer so we could get to know the country of our ancestors. Because Haiti is an island, the beach is everywhere. Haitians are particular, even snobby about beaches. We scoff at the beaches of other Caribbean islands or Hawaii (let us not speak of continental American “beaches”) because nowhere in the world, we know with certainty, is the water warmer and clearer. Nowhere is the sand whiter or more willing to embrace our warm flesh.

In Haiti, beach bodies are simply bodies, and beach reads are simply books, because the beach is all around you. Here in the United States, it is similar for those who live on the coasts. The beach is five miles away from my parents’ Florida home. They have lived there for more than 15 years. They have been to the beach once, to take guests who were visiting.

But for the rest of us, the beach exerts a different kind of gravitational pull. Sixty-one percent of Americans don’t live anywhere near a beach. We spend a surprising amount of time hearing about this place we will hardly ever see. We watch commercials, TV shows and movies in which nubile young women and their strapping male counterparts frolic on sand, their hair golden and sun-streaked. Long walks on the beach are the supposed holy grail of a romantic evening. The beach becomes a kind of utopia — the place where all our dreams come true.

I have known beaches, but I have no particular fondness for them. I don’t like sand in my crevices. I don’t like sand at all. I don’t enjoy all that sunshine and heat without the benefit of climate control. I don’t enjoy other people at the beach — sticky children, young people with firm bodies and scanty bathing suits, those of less firm body staring forlornly at this spectacle. People bring pets, and I am not an animal person. No, I do not want to pet your dog.

After 10 minutes, I find myself bored. What are we supposed to do at the beach? I’m black, and so I understand sunbathing as a concept but less so as an activity. How long am I supposed to lie in the sun? When do I turn myself over like roasting meat on a spit? How often do I apply this sunscreen you speak of?

I don’t like bathing suits. There is so little material involved and they ride up in places where there should be no riding. They are not flattering for many body types because a beach body is a very specific, slender, toned and tan body. The rest of us, if we dare show up at the beach, should probably don caftans, neck to toe. Wearing a bathing suit on a beach would leave me exposed in ways that terrify me: no clothing to hide behind, so much of my flesh spilling, available for mockery or, as this modern age demands, amateur photography in which I end up as the punch line on some website that masks cruelty with so-called humor. I’m not that brave.

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There is the water, lapping gently on the shore, but, honestly, it’s not that much fun to get into it. Sometimes there are creatures and slimy lengths of seaweed and sharp things at the bottom. Unlike the swimming pool, there is no chlorine at the beach, and I am quite certain that people are using the ocean as their vast personal toilet. It is an unfathomable stretch of water that holds too much potential for treachery. And sharks.

It’s no better up on the sand. Beach seating is uncomfortable, particularly when you’re tall. There my feet are, hanging over the edge of the chaise. Or I’m in some kind of lawn chair, my parts sticking to polyester in ways that will leave firmly indented patterns. Reading at the beach is an ordeal — trying to find a comfortable position, keeping sand out of the book and sun out of my eyes, managing the pages if there is a strong breeze. Soon enough, my sunglasses start sliding down my face.

ONCE, I drove down to Key West, which is, basically, New Orleans at the beach: loud, grimy, abundant in alcohol. I saw the southernmost point in the United States and waited in a line of tourists to hug the marker and have my picture taken. I stepped carefully onto those strange undulations of sand. I thought, “This is pretty and all, but I could die without ever having this experience again.” The beach is a place lovelier in theory than practice.

Summer itself is also lovelier in theory than practice, despite the best efforts of splashy magazines trying to hype us up. “Get ready for summer,” they say, when they should be saying, “Prepare for inconsistent weather, humidity, disappointment and dreams deferred.”

I always have grand plans for myself each summer. I teach, and throughout the academic year, my colleagues and I wax wistful about all the things we’re going to do when the spring semester ends. We will read, and it will be luxurious, because we will be reading for ourselves. We will travel, and not to attend a conference. And, of course, we will diligently prepare for our fall courses. I have, thus far, spent my summer watching an inordinate amount of “Barefoot Contessa” on the Food Network.

It will never be what we want it to be, and yet we cannot help but hold on to this vision of summer, of the beach, of contentment. Despite my better judgment, I am also vulnerable to this fantasy, to so much trembling want. It is an unattainable idyll that we never quite reach, but somehow, it remains enough.