Beach
Dear Diary. "Did you mind if I go to the beach?" I asked Girlfriend.
"The beach? Why?"
"It's the people from the social group. They're going."
I showed her my phone. There was a photo of a secluded beach gently curving into the distance, backed by dunes, shrubs, and trees. Below this was a group message from a German girl that said, "We could do the beach today because it's good with the bus from Girona!"
Girlfriend tutted. "The weekend is supposed to be family time."
"But they're my friends," I protested. "And you're always saying I should make friends."
"They're not your friends, they're just people you've met once or twice," she snapped.
"How about if I take 2-year-old with me?"
"I'm not going to let you take 2-year-old with a bunch of strangers."
"So can I go then or what?"
"Yes, you can go," she said.
"What?" I exclaimed.
"You can go."
I hadn't expected her to say yes. Now I wasn't even sure if I still wanted to go.
I went outside on the balcony to think about whether I still wanted to go. But I still didn't know. So I flipped a coin: heads meant go, tails meant stay.
The coin landed on tails.
I decided to go anyway. Because fuck the coin. Ain't no coin gonna tell me what to do.
I put on my swimming trunks and packed a towel into a bag. Then I said goodbye to the kids and walked to the car. On the way to the car, I sent a message to the WhatsApp group: "I'm driving there, so if anyone wants a lift to the beach, let me know."
But no one replied. Maybe they had found this blog and they'd shadow-banned me from the WhatsApp group for writing about them.
But a few minutes later I got a reply, from the Greek girl Elena:
"We are on the bus now ahahah, see you there"
That was a shame as I could have given everyone a lift. We could have played music on the car stereo thanks to my Spotify Premium account. And the women would have admired me for my driving skills and thought about what a good dad I'd make to their future children.
I enjoyed listening to The Killers's Hot Fuss album on the drive there. It was a shame I was alone in the car because it meant I had no one else to enjoy the music with me.
When I got to the beach, there was nowhere to park. I saw a Lidl. A sign read PARKING FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY. I thought "screw it" and parked in the Lidl car park. I squeezed my car between another car and a caravan. I left the car there, in the Lidl car park.
As I was walking to the beach, my phone rang. I answered it.
"Hi, is that Paul?"
It was Elena, the Greek girl.
"Yeah, it's me," I said.
"We were just wondering if you were coming? Because we're about to start."
Start? Start what? Weren't we just hanging out at the beach like the kids of Dawson's Creek?
"Yeah, I'm almost there," I told her. "I'll be five minutes."
"Oh okay, good," she said. "We'll wait for you then. See you there."
Wait for me? Wait for me for what?
I walked across dunes and grass until I came to the beach. The water was calm and peaceful. There was the group of people from the WhatsApp group, sitting on the sand: the Greek girl Elena, a Brazilian guy named Cezar, an Italian woman named Cristina, a Polish woman named Irena, and a blonde German girl named Denise who had organized all this.
Their towels were laid out in a suspicious way: all in a straight line facing Denise.
"Hi everyone," I said.
"Where are your kids?" the Italian woman asked. "Did you kill them?"
"No, but sometimes I want to."
They all laughed at that.
"Did you bring a towel?" Denise asked.
"Uh, yeah, sure," I replied.
"Good, because we're going to do a yoga session."
Christ, not yoga.
The last time I did yoga, it was supposed to only be a 45-minute class but it went on for an hour and a half, and for the last half hour, we just sat there chanting "Sa Ta Na Ma" while trying to clear and restructure our subconscious minds. All I could see was the inside of my eyelids. That was the first and what I thought would be the last time I did yoga.
Out of politeness to Denise, I joined in with the yoga. I thought I could leave after ten minutes and then go swimming in the sea.
But as it turned out, the yoga was quite good. It was a nice mix of stretches, strength training, and relaxation. Yoga's good for the body, not in an intense way like Bodycombat but in a more gentle way, like exercise for the injured and elderly. I could feel the breeze on my skin and the warmth of the sun.
After the yoga class, I decided to go into the sea.
"I'm going into the sea," I announced to everyone.
No one else came, so I guessed it was just me then. I stepped into the water. The water was ice cold. I started walking forward. I tried to walk faster but all these sharp rocks were under my feet. I kept walking into the sea but after ten minutes, the water still only came up to my waist. I found a rare deep part and jumped in, and the shock of the cold made me start swearing in Japanese ("Chikushoo!"), which was weird as I don't even know Japanese. I took the opportunity to take a piss in the sea. Then I stumbled back out of the water and onto the beach, almost falling over onto the rocks.
"How was the sea?" someone asked when I had staggered back to dry land.
"Really bad," I said.
They had arranged their towels as a makeshift picnic blanket and they were sitting around eating strawberries, grapes, bread, and cheese.
I checked the time: 12:40 pm. I put my T-shirt back on. "Well, I've got to go now," I said to everyone. "I told my girlfriend I'd be home in time for lunch. See you."
They waved goodbye.
So that was that. I was there for no more than 90 minutes. I walked back through the grass and the dunes. I got back to my car. It hadn't been towed away. The caravan was still there too. It had been there before I arrived. So how long had the caravan been there? Maybe the people who own the caravan live in the Lidl car park.
I drove home. So that was my day at the beach.
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