The Places I'd Rather Be

I am sitting outside on the front steps of my university apartment, watching people pass by and the shadows cast by trees take form on the hot asphalt, wishing I wasn’t sitting here in agony. Last Friday I flew back east from the west coast and sadly but understandably due to Covid-19 the strict laws in Nova Scotia require me to quarantine for 14 days. Alone with the four walls of my apartment and my own thoughts, I wish for a time when this wasn’t our reality. I reflect on the past when life was elementary and transparent, as the worries of catching a deadly virus or passing it on to someone else was only a reality seen in movies or read in books. I long for the days when life seemed simpler and more juvenile, as the burdens of my life, if any, were carried on the backs of my parents. 

At this exact moment, with the sun shining on my back, I try to reflect upon the uncomplicated times of childhood. Memories of adolescent summers, stored deep in the grey matter of my mind are instantly uncovered.  Memories of the west coast, the strong scent of children’s sunscreen and the weight of my beach bucket in my little hands, much heavier all those years ago. Ironically, the weight I currently hold is veiled with change and uncertainty, unlimited to emotions like anxiety and fear rather than simply the burden of a heavy beach bucket filled to the brim with sand, or salty ocean water. During these childhood summers I never once worried about the politics of the world or of a virus upturning all that is ordinary, to throw us into a state of unknown. I desire the ease that accompanies young age, when what others thought of you didn't matter, or the ways in which you looked and presented yourself never took root in your mind. I long for scalding summer days where I worried about nothing other than inconsequential things, like whether overnight the waves would nibble at the edges of my sandcastle or devour it whole.

On my front steps I shut my eyes, picture the beach, and I am home, back on the west coast, many years ago, feeling the first contact of the ocean as the cold waves wash up the shore to molest my toes, and then retreat as if they feel guilty for what they have done. I can hear the waves as they powerfully collide with sand, sand so fine that when the wind speeds up tiny particles whip across the beach unmindful of the sunbathers. I can feel the sand abrasive against my bare skin as if there are tiny ants trying to burrow their way into my bloodstream. Normally this would be an unpleasant feeling, especially as a child, but I crave it over the misery of sitting here alone with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Aside from the sound of the sand scurrying across the beach, murmurs of conversations and the laughter of children drift between the scattered groups of people. Granted, the inability to hear each person clearly blends all the voices together creating a hum pleasant to the ears. A sound that prevents even the loneliest person from feeling completely and totally alone. I can feel my mother’s fingers rubbing sunscreen on my freckled cheeks as I wait impatiently to join the other girls and boys playing on the beach. My protruding stomach is ignored by my mother’s vigorous sunscreen application as I sport one of the many colourful one-piece bathing suits I had as a little girl. A blessing I never saw for what it was, as I never once cared about the awkward plumpness of my stomach being exposed. With the lowering sun, the late afternoon is spent half wet, half dry, wrapped in a beach towel perched on my father’s lap in his beach chair. The legs of the chair buried safely into the sand like a tree’s roots in the earth's dirt. Feelings of safety and total certainty that nothing will uproot my spirits, warms my insides.

This is where I wish to be right now, on the beach back then, when life was simple. A time where nothing would distract my intense desire to swim in the ocean or play in the sand. No news headline could make me feel sick or question humanity. No virus would keep me locked indoors with nothing but my thoughts. I long for simpler times and hot summer days when nothing was amiss.