Memorial Day is nature’s blurry demarcation line between winter’s sorrow and summer’s light.
Life now is gray, as if we must suffer through this murky purgatory before seeing contrasts again. The morning overcast becomes afternoon overcast, which becomes an impenetrable wall of gloom by evening.
When, oh when, will the sun break high, softly parched, like an edible egg?
In the meantime, most people embrace the holiday’s hope, perhaps knowing it is a tease to something better.
For better or worse, it’s time to break out the beach gear because, dammit, we want it to be summer.
So we dust off the coolers and umbrellas (not that we need them to shield the sun). Maybe we just grill in the backyard.
For our inland tourist friends, it’s an opportunity to get some beach time before everyone else – as if.
There will still be traffic. Most will not pay attention or yield when they drive, so the intersections will continue to be gridlocked. At the end of life, will you look back and cherish that extra car length?
But as ambassadors to Laguna Beach, we try to smile and point the way, knowing that Memorial Day is just the start of all things summer:
Unfortunately, yoga pants never made it back to the studio where they belong, but do we need ultra-tight fabrics that cling to parts unknown?
Young men are the first to pull off their shirts, trying to hide goosebumps, adorned with cryptic tattoos and proud of their 15 minutes of flesh.
Older men like to flash their new boat offshore, dashing close to the surf line, only to find a hidden reef.
Thankfully, there are children to reprioritize adult foibles. They just want to get dirty, make sandcastles and hold on to the magic as long as possible.
The beauty of all this, despite the carnival and the two-hour wait at Nick’s, is that we get to do this all summer long.
We had a slight, almost imperceptible break from the crowds, but the rising tide of year-round summer keeps coming. It’s the Memorial Day surge, pulling us along like a poorly placed anchor.
The best plan is to go with the flow, focus on the kids, stay positive and try to keep your sense of humor.
Sometimes, the tourists themselves make it easy. On Memorial Day at Main Beach, a mom was pushing her child along in a stroller.
“Oh look,” she said to the child, stopping and pointing. “The storks. I’m pretty sure they are storks.”
The small child repeated “storks” and giggled.
Overhead, the pelicans didn’t seem to mind. They, too, know it’s the start of tourist season.
