Gatorade for my Soul

Twice this summer, I’ve been to the beach.  Not just any beach, either, but the dog beach at Huntington.  Now, I’m not really an animal person.  I had some dogs as a kid, and the families had some cats.  I had a few fish at one point.  But I don’t need to own pets.  However, the dog beach is enough to make me reconsider this.

Look, everybody loves the beach.  The sun, the sand, the water…it doesn’t take a saint for these things to touch you in a very real way.  If you’re not a Scrooge, you probably really enjoy the sights and sounds of children as they frolic in the water.  It’s hard not to be affected by this in some way.  But Huntington is a DOG BEACH, where people can bring their dogs and have them off the leash.

It’s the most joyous pandemonium you have ever seen.  These dogs, which probably mostly live indoors, only enjoying the outdoors at the whim of their owners, and then all too often on a leash…these dogs go APE-SHIT.  It is pure joy, undistilled delight.  They bark at one another, they jump in the water, the shy away from the water, they protect their towels and blankets and umbrellas…and they basically get to be dogs.  It’s awesome.

It was made all the better because I was there with some of the people I love best in the world, one of whom is my little niece/goddaughter/good friend’s kid.  She’s eight, and if she were any cuter, she’d be a puppy herself.  She’s afraid of the water, but she can’t stay away from it.  She jumps over the smallest of waves, and rages and kicks at the water, daring it to get her…which of course it  does.  And I fret about undertow and her fears…and I can feel myself becoming a better man, a healthier man, through my love for her and her sisters and her mom and her aunt(s).

In a year of disappointment and pain, a year where I have walked a road in the long desert of recovery and rediscovery…days like Monday, true holidays…days like that are Gatorade for my soul.