Marching to the Ocean, Marching to the Sea

Douglas Copeland called it the notion of the "poverty jet set" - the overeducated folks who work McJobs in order to have the money and freedom to (as often as possible) jump ship, skip town, and junket to exotic locales. For better or worse, the ultimate McJob might in fact be graduate school.

At least, that is the way it seems from a distance.

The reality (as reality often is) is far more complex. Take me, for example. I really haven't taken a 'vacation' in probably ten years, but one might reasonably argue that my whole life is, in fact, one big goof off session. Seriously: I occasionally write, I eat very well, I sleep (sometimes), I watch a lot of episodes of the X-Files.

What is there to get away from?

And yet, recently I was graced witht he chance to get away from my life in Nashville; to take a vacation from my goof-off life of graduate studies and really goof off. To go, in short, to the beach. And I went. And it was wonderful.

I was not alone. Making the fifteen-or-so-hour trip with me was my intrepid companion and fellow gung-ho Catholic, Burt. We burned our way across Tennessee and then took on the wilds of Virginia in a rage of driving and loud music and really good conversation. I kept saying "we must be at least half way there by now!" and Burt would just calmly shake his head no and consult the map. It was (from the standpoint of driving) insane, but (from the standpoint of one's relation to life and the universe) a good position to be in. If the trip is insanely long, you might as well enjoy it. [There's a life lesson in there.]

Okay. And the beach was fantastic. We were in two houses on a private beach on the Chesapeake Bay. To get there, you had to drive northwest from Virginia Beach - over a long long bridge that had tunnels that went underwater (cool and scary). We arrived at like 4:30 in the morning and so didn't get a good look at the place until the next day. I have to say, it was truly perfect. Being in the bay, the waves never got terribly high, and the tides were mild for the most part (there was one day whe several folks got marooned on a sandbar, but that might have had more to do with the alcohol levels than the water levels). The one thing I missed was body surfing, but that was a small price to pay. The water was warm at good times and cool at good times, and I had fun wading and swimming.

Did I mention that while I was at the beach my car rolled over to an amazing 200,000 miles on the odometer? This is, I think, some sort of karmic justice (as if I believed in karma, as if I believed in justice. But still). This is, you see, the second Nissan Sentra I have owned in my life. The last one (from mid highschool to mid-college) was a lemon. This one, Lord bless it, is a peach. It runs and runs and runs, despite being old and looking like baked - over Hell. I call it the Grey Ghost, my car, but it also reminds one of the Energizer Bunny.


So the car and the beach were fantastic, but I cannot neglect to mention the people, as well. Shane, Virginia, Jimmy, Burt, Katy, Heather, as well as Melissa, Luke, and Lindsay (who came down from D.C.) shared laughs, got drunk (repeatedly), played card games and made merry in the surf and the sea. It was good to be among friends old and new, away from the cares of Nashville, and inebriated with sand between my toes. (Oh, and at night, the stars. My goodness, the stars).

I was gone just long enough to be ready to come back. A perfect vacation, and a wonderful time.