“Hey, take a moment to look around at all these people,” I told my daughter. “See them?”
“You mean all these pale, pasty, semi-translucent people?” she asked, gazing at the beachgoers around us. They were mostly tourists. It was President’s Day. Un-seasonably warm. And the beach was hoppin’ with out-of-towners, all keen on turning their skin lollipop red. You could tell they weren’t Floridians because they tromped into the freezing, glacial-like water without screaming as if their skin was being burned off by acid.
“Yes … these people,” I said. “Take a moment and think about how they have worked and saved and planned for months to come here to enjoy a day at the beach, maybe the only time they will see something like this.”
I had taken the day off to celebrate President’s Day the way our great leaders always intended: eating ice cream and worrying about whether a Portuguese man o’ war had attached itself to my ankle.
It had struck me that our day at the beach had been remarkably easy. We decided on it late in the morning, threw some stuff in a bag, grabbed the paddle ball set and went. Twenty minutes later and we had sand between our toes. That’s St. Augustine living!
“But for all of these people,” I told my daughter, “this is a luxury – a rare opportunity. Not everyone can get here so easily. It takes you longer to find your other flip-flop than it does for us to get here. Do you realize that? How special this is?!? Never take that for granted.”
My daughter stood there, looking around. Thinking about it. All the people. She turned to me and said: “Yeah … you know, where WAS my other flip-flop?”
I assumed the moment was lost on her. But I hope not.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Trying to make sure I appreciate the little – and big – things in life. To not take anything for granted – our location, the weather, the unbelievable sunsets. The other evening the sky lit up in such a fantastic orange that I thought my neighbor’s house was on fire. I almost called 911!
I don’t know why I’ve been feeling this way. This realization that I need to be more grateful and aware. Maybe it’s an age thing. Or maybe it’s the local TV crew from Indiana that I had hosted at Flagler College one morning last week. They had come through town to show everyone back home what Florida is like while the rest of the country shivers and shovels snow and pretty much curses our ability to feel the warmth of the sun. As they marveled at architectural wonders of the gilded age, I realized all this beauty had become routine to me. Ironic, isn’t it? The very things that drew us here were now background noise – lost in the “every day.”
Maybe it was then that I realized I couldn’t take it all for granted anymore. I had to be more aware. And impart this “wisdom” to my daughter, even if it was president’s day and we were supposed to be celebrating it with ice cream and an irrational fear of man o’ war.