A Transdimensional Day at the Beach

The lesson every sane human being who has the privilege to go on a vacation in these near feudal times should understand is that a bad day at the beach beats the living hell out of a good day at work. As dogmas go, it's far simpler than most, if not all religious or philosophical tenets that force people to jump through complicated hypocritical hoops and twist themselves into self-deceiving pretzels. Life began in the seas and while our amphibian ancestors crawled out of the salty waters and began the conquest of dry land are now calcified fossils, we hairless primates still have some sort of instinctual connection with the ocean.

Now it is true that this connection is stronger in some and weaker in others. One of the most bizarre statements I ever heard spoken was some dude telling me that salt water made him feel dirty. That he preferred swimming in fresh water lakes and ponds. Yeah, I adhere to the idea that we all have to true to our basic nature but I couldn't help but feel a bit of disgust at that individual.

My connection to the ocean first developed on the shores of Pawleys Island, South Carolina back in the late 1960's. While not really able to swim, kids my age would slowly go deeper into the water until it was up to our necks and we bobbed like corks in the gentle swells with our toes only occasionally touching the sandy bottom. Given the fear and paranoia the movie Jaws spawned a few years later, by all rights at least one or two of my fellow kindergarten age adventurers and myself should have ended up as a snack for some shark.

During those strangely backwards and progressive times, our parents didn't have a clue as of our actual whereabouts. They were hanging out on shore drinking themselves into a early afternoon stupor. They were satisfied in the knowledge that their children were somewhere in a half mile radius of their beach chairs and beer laden coolers. This wasn't child abuse or neglect, parents simply didn't feel the need to hover over their kids like overprotective angels. It was a different time, whether such parental behaviors were better or worse is a debate outside this scope of this story. No, there were absolutely no professional lifeguards anywhere to be seen back then, it was strictly swim at your own risk. Somehow over the years though, us kids learned the nature of currents, and waves along with avoiding jelly fish and knowing to get the out of the water if someone started bleeding.

I still retain a fondness for Pawleys Island, even though it lost most of what made it special for me due to the relentless encroachment of real estate developers. The south end of Pawleys Island once had an isolated feel, with the quite nearby mainland devoid of any of the gross McMansions that began popping up in the 1990's. The beaches I get to mostly these days are those off Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. A place that is far more developed and frankly pretentious than the permanent residents of Pawleys could hope to achieve, despite their best efforts. But being true to my central beliefs, it's still a beach and you have to work really hard to not enjoy the sun, sand, and ocean.

Last month I was doing just that, we were staying at Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort with my wife and I spending the day on the beach. It was mid-morning and after both of us had spent some time in the ocean she had gone back to sit under our rented umbrella and read a magazine. I decided to stay in the ocean and continue to float on my back and relax in the calm and cool waters.

Given the public location and that it was summertime, several groups of people were nearby me as I floated idly on the water. One was a large family throwing what looked to be a Nerf football to each other. There was also a relatively young couple with the wife/girlfriend quite pregnant. No expert here, but having already seen her on the beach earlier, I would have guessed she was seven to eight months along. The husband/boyfriend and her were playing quite closely with each other in the water making me uncomfortable given my relative nearness and overactive imagination.

So to solve the possible issue of seeming like I might be intruding on either group, I turned myself around so that I was looking out at the horizon. Quite frankly it was a brilliant move, not only was it now clear that I was not eavesdropping on either group but it promoted a sense of solitude in an otherwise crowded shore. Here's where things start to get sort of weird.

Being that I was further out in the water than anyone else in sight, from my point of view the universe had narrowed down to two distinct infinite planes with the ocean and sky meeting at the horizon. Adding to this psychedelic effect, the sky that day was cloudless and the ocean was so calm the shore resembled more a slightly disturbed pool with no real waves. Now throw in my ability/talent to ignore most of the crap human beings say to each other and I became a bit transdimensional floating in the placid waters leaving the normal space-time continuum.

Relaxing while playing with such a mindset, my imagination tripped out jumping from idea to idea, all pretty weird. During this indeterminate time, I remembered a science fiction short story from the 1980's that involved a crewman on a U.S. bomber. Blown out of his plane by attacking enemy aircraft as intense lightning flashed in nearby clouds, he finds himself falling between two infinite planes. This character, a theoretical physics major in college before the war, figures the intense lightening ripped a hole in local space-time casting him out of the normal universe. While he falls, the main character remembers several lectures he had with his favorite professor on fringe physics.

As science fictions stories went, it was okay. No huge revelations on the human experience or the nature of the universe. The dude eventually “falls” into the other dimensional plane with time then reversing and him rejoining his damage aircraft which comes back together. Once back at his duty station inside the bomber, the main character shrugs off the entire episode as a combat-induced hallucination.

The bomber lands safely back at the airbase with the flight crew heading off to the officers' club to get heavily drunk. The only thing big reveal of the story comes as all the other guys on the bomber crew notice the main character, someone who they have lived and worked closely with for years, is now right-handed. As opposed to the person they always saw using his left hand for everything. Yeah, nothing really earth shattering, unless you have lived and worked with someone for such a long time that they know you intimately and can anticipate most of their actions.

After chuckling at remembering that story, my mind drifted off to other subjects. Funny thing happened after that, since I was staring off at the horizon and relaxing for so long, I either dozed off or entered a semi-hypnotic state where I wasn't really conscious. I liken the semi-hypnotic idea to the story I've heard about cross-continent highways down in Australia. When those highways were built they made them close to absolutely straight given the continuous flat terrain. What I've heard is that you can go for hours without a curve, a dip, or hill to break the monotony. Combine that with the low volume sounds of tires rolling on the highway and it reported drivers can become hypnotized to the point that they can fly off the road if they encounter something that changes the path of the highway.

Whatever the case, something eventually shook me out of my stupor. I didn't look at my watch before turning away from the other people in the water. But my best guess was that I had zoned out from reality for about thirty minutes. That's when I got a bit of a shock when I turned and faced the beach.

The structures in the back ground and the array of people occupying the shoreline with tents and umbrellas were totally different. Looking around in the water near me, the family throwing the Nerf football and the pregnant couple were gone. A completely different group of people were now in the places they once occupied.

For a couple of seconds I was having a full-fledged and certified Keanu Reeves' “WHOA” moment. I simply didn't know where in the hell I was located. Of course, my bizarre mind quickly thought about that science fiction story I remembered earlier while floating and staring off at the horizon stuck between two the ocean and the sky. The question as to whether I had somehow slipped the bounds of normal space-time and entered a different dimensional floated around in my head during that brief time. This left me with an intense eerie feeling of unease that I mostly blame on being out in the sun too long.

After those disorienting few seconds, that small piece that is my rational brain kicked in to reconnect me with reality. Remembering one of the first things I learned about the ocean shore, despite the seemingly placid ocean, there was still enough of a current to take me down a significant stretch of beach. Feeling slightly ashamed, I shook off the majority of the eerie feeling and began walking back to the shore.

Still being morning, the near talcum white beach sand of Hilton Head had not heated up significantly yet. This allowed me to divert to an already open tiki bar located at another resort instead of returning directly to the rented umbrella my wife and I shared. Yes, the tiki bar's philosophy was summed up on the sign mounted on a pole supporting the thatched roof that read: “It's always five o'clock somewhere.” For me though, nothing washes away internal embarrassment and the feeling that you may have slipped into another dimension like that reassuring potion made up of tequila and margarita mix.

“It's awful early for a margarita,” my wife said as I plopped into the chair next her. This bit of spousal semi-disapproval didn't stop her from gesturing that she wanted a sip or two or what really turned out to be a small gulp.

“Don't judge me,” I quipped taking back my expensive, morning alcoholic treat. Just to totally make certain I was in the right dimension though, I had to ask her one thing. “I've been right-handed for the entire time you've known me, right?”

“Since the day we meet at the Jimmy Buffett concert.” She said in a totally incurious manner never taking her eyes off the magazine she was reading. No, she didn't inquire as to why I would ask such a weird question, That's when I realized I was still safely in my home universe.