'Oh, and one more thing,' said my brother on the phone the night before I left for the beach. He was already there, with my mother and a few other members of my family in advance of a bigger reunion that was planned for the weekend. 'Please stop into North Face and pick up some parkas for us.' I laughed, having suspected as much, given that it was cool and breezy in the city, which often translates into cold and windy at the beach. When I arrived on Wednesday afternoon, we went anyway and suffered through a few minutes of biting sand to get into the water for a few brutal but exhilarating seconds. The water was cold, but not frigid the way it used to be in June. I thought about the articles I had recently read about the ocean being warming than it's ever been. Was it dying? It was hard to believe, given how beautiful it was, the way the ocean almost always is.
The wind died down the next day, leaving behind a luminous fog that made the beach seem otherworldly.
It was very wide, too, on account of the (literally) billions of dollars the government has spent dredging sand from the bottom of the ocean and adding it back to the beach. 'Haven't they heard about global warming?' I asked my brother, who shrugged. I spent a few minutes ranting about the way the government will spend unfathomable amounts of money to protect the beach houses of a tiny percentage of (mostly very) wealthy people who own at the shore instead of spending it on, say, improving public transportation for the millions of (mostly working-class) people who depend on it to get to work.
Or say, redesigning roads like this one that allow cars to roar up and down this very narrow barrier island. Most people, it seems, haven't made the connection between their desire to drive anywhere at any time and the disappearing coastline (among other problems).
I understood the appeal of denial, especially here. In addition to being beautiful, the beach offers a kind of nostalgic bubble, a place of respite for those lucky enough to have access. Having gone to this beach as a (very privileged) kid, I still recognized many of the landmarks -- the miniature golf courses, the ice cream shops, and so on. Being here felt comfortable and familiar.
Many of the houses have gotten much bigger and gaudier -- especially the ones that were built in the wake of Hurricane Sandy -- but if you didn't know any better, you might be inclined to say that very little had changed in the last fifty years, which makes it easy to think that very little is going to change in the next fifty.
Watch this space in 2073 for an update on how things are going.
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