Why This Beach

"Why this beach?" my wife often asks.

There are beaches that are closer to the house. Beaches that are easier to reach. Beaches where you don't have to drive 90 minutes north, then park the car and hike half a mile. My wife smiles tolerantly and affectionately when I insist on coming here.

Why this beach? "I like that it's remote," I tell her. "I like that there aren't many people here. I like the solitude. I like the tidal pools here." And it's the truth; I do like those things. It's the truth...but not the whole truth.

How can I tell her the whole truth? Seven years ago, just after we were married, I had to travel to France on business. To Bordeaux, for a week-long project that turned into nearly three weeks. On the first weekend, everybody took the train to Paris. Everybody except me. I rented a car and drove south by myself, down the A63 to Aire sur l'Adour.

Why? Because Aire sur l'Adour is on the same latitude as Kittery, Maine, where my new wife sat waiting for me to return. It was silly and romantic, and I looked forward to telling her about it when I returned. I wanted to tell her that I stood on the beach and looked west, and the only thing that separated us was a few thousand inconsequential miles of water.

But it was raining when I got there and instead I sat in a little patisserie. There I met a woman. Isabeau. A nurse who was about to spend three months in Angola serving with Doctors Without Borders. Three months in a therapeutic feeding center in town called Malange. Three months in a country that had been in a civil war for thirty years, the heaviest mined country in the world, a country with more landmines than people.

I love my wife. I loved her then and I love her now. But I spent that weekend and the next with Isabeau. I did not tell my wife that I'd driven south to Aire sur l'Adour just to share the same latitude with her.

And now, seven years later, I find myself driving to a small beach located at 43 degrees north. I look east, and when nobody is near me I whisper to myself that the only thing separating me from Isabeau is seven years and a few thousand inconsequential miles of water.

posted by greg @ 2:26 PM