Beached

Oh good, I thought. I’m glad there is something on the playground that’s a little dangerous, a whirligig with netting. It looks new. I could see kids grabbing on all the way to the top and the mightier, muscular ones running and pushing to make it go fast and faster. A kid could fall off that thing so they’d better think about where they put their hands and who they trust to do the running.

I think this on a beach that was rolled over by Hurricane Irma several months ago. Vast piles of sand sit in unlikely places, the palm trees stand erect but oddly shorn like a teenager who changed his mind about a buzz cut before the barber finished. Piles of sea plants lay on the shore so to get into the water one has to step through or over the brown piles, looking out for sea creatures, the invisible, jellylike things the ocean splashes on to the sand now and then.

Orange fencing keeps us out of the lower end of the beach; the bathrooms are open but dark and abandoned inside. There is hardly anyone on the beach and even though it has been raining, it seems odd to be alone there. A couple riding bikes with a hotel’s name on the side ride up and park their bikes under a picnic canopy. It all feels like a visitation.

Across the street, there is a row of new houses, the same design, different pastel colors, several with red shutters, like little badges of courage. Some are finished, some are skeletons, all the same, like they were ordered from the same catalog. They are replacement houses, that is clear. We are sitting and drinking our coffee in what was the path of a hurricane.

It occurs to me that the kids here don’t need a whirligig to learn about danger.