I do not believe in the ocean.
The great curse of having grown up near Lake Michigan is that there is no other beach option in the world that sounds appealing to me. Lake Michigan is perfect. For a few months in the summer, the temperature is just right, the waves are just big enough to be interesting, the sand is clean and wonderful, and the water is free of salt and sharks. Sure, there are other Great Lakes, but they do not interest me. Even if they are not too polluted or too cold, they are just not right.
I swim in Lake Michigan on the Michigan side. This is the beach experience as the Good Lord intended. Everything else is repulsive to me. Does this mean that I limit my entire concept of the beach to 500 miles of beach in the Midwest? Does it mean that I will never consider swimming at the world’s finest ocean beaches? Yes. That is exactly what it means. If it is not Lake Michigan, I am not interested. Some people may call this the view of a closed-minded man or say that I will miss out on some of the world’s greatest pleasures. I am not interested in what those people have to say.
I do not care for the ocean. I swam in an ocean once. I got salt in my eyes and then I saw a jellyfish. That was the end of that. I do not swim in the ocean. I do not think about the ocean. I do not eat food from the ocean. There is no ambiguity on the matter. Offered oysters at a fancy restaurant some weeks ago, I declined, explaining, “I do not believe in the ocean.” Some people do not believe in vaccines or climate change. I get to have this one thing.
When we went on a family spring break to Florida when I was a child, I was bored to tears, and not in a metaphorical sense. I sat in bed and wept for days. My father and sister went to the ocean and reportedly enjoyed themselves. I suspect that this was not because the ocean is an intrinsically pleasurable place to be, but because of the novelty of having gone swimming in March when a considerable portion of Lake Michigan is still frozen solid.
The promise of warmth does drive some Michiganders to places like Florida in the off-season. This is a very expensive way to experience a worse version of what would come to them if they would simply wait a few months for the lake to warm up.
When it was suggested that we return to Florida for spring break a few years later, I threatened to drive the family minivan off of a bridge and, in this way, ensured that New York was the annual spring break destination for years afterward.
The horrible reality of New York in the summer is that it is very far from Lake Michigan. I always understood on an intellectual level that there were beaches in New York. Part of the city touches the ocean, so it stands to reason that such a geographic feature should exist. To realize that this is an attraction — that any person might derive pleasure from swimming in the ocean — particularly in water with runoff from New York — is a separate matter entirely (though this is hardly the worst body of water to which New Yorkers have been exposed this month).
The upsetting fact of New York beaches struck me on a bus the other day when I saw an advertisement proclaiming, “New York’s public beaches are open!” If the weather was just a bit cooler and people understood what they were missing with Lake Michigan, Coney Island and Rockaway Beach would be deserted, but summer heat and Michigan deficiency drive people to do horrifying things.
I went to the beach last Saturday to bear witness to the spectacle. I understand that the phrase “to go to the beach” carries with it some expectation of having relaxed on the sand and gone into the water, which I did not do. I went to the beach in the strictest sense of the phrase.
The A Train to the Rockaways (which are home to about ten miles of New York’s beach frontage) is a very long journey to make in a hard plastic seat. At some point during the trip, most of the people on the train are suddenly wearing swimsuits and flip-flops, which is unnerving on the subway. I made sure to wear long pants, leather boots, and a dress shirt so nobody would get the idea that I was enjoying myself.
There are no sand dunes before the beach. There is no great park space leading up to the place. There are a few city blocks with laundromats, pizza places, and corner groceries. Then there is the ocean. I walked as far as I could without getting sand in my shoes, looked out at the mighty vastness of the sea for a moment, and went home, walking through the ocean-adjacent area and thinking of flood insurance rates.
The “New York’s public beaches are open” advertisements on the journey home are not alone. The Office of Emergency Management has begun a new ad campaign urging New Yorkers to “know your zone,” referring to storm surge evacuation zones for hurricane season. I may not believe in the ocean, but meteorology and climate change are another matter entirely. It takes well north of an hour to get from Manhattan to the ocean, but — if the folks at City Hall know what they are talking about — the ocean can get to Manhattan very quickly under the right conditions. It is much easier living life without believing in the ocean when the ocean is not creeping up East 96th Street.
For what it’s worth, this was never a problem with Lake Michigan.
Distractions
Things I have been reading, watching, and listening to this week.
“The Plague After the Plague” by Nick Paumgarten in the New Yorker.
A few weeks ago, I was stricken down by a terrible cold — not COVID, just a regular old cold. After working so hard for so long to not get sick, actually getting sick seems so much worse than I remember. I sat debilitated in bed for a couple of days, sniffling and watching movies.
This is, it seems, a common experience. “It’s the ‘reëmergence cold.’ The plague after the plague. The thief who rolls in beneath the descending garage door.” And it is good to know that I am not alone.
“A Peek Inside the World’s Greatest Record Store” by Richard Grant in Smithsonian Magazine.
There is, on the far western edge of Philadelphia, a record store containing five million R&B records. The place is the project of one single man who is a prolific collector and historian of one single type of American music. This article is a delightful profile of that one enigmatic man and the collection he has amassed.