11 years ago i took a week off from work and flew to st petersburg florida. I stayed in a barely operating run down hotel located right on the beach. There was no room service and during the entire week i only saw one other couple walking the halls there. If you needed towels you could ask for them at the desk and if you were done with your old towels, uou could drop them off in the laundry room hamper next to the vending machine. There was a kitchenette and i’d taken a taxi to the nearest grocery and picked up some food to live off of for the week i was staying. Every morning the sun would rise and i would go to the beach. When the tide was out i would shell. When the tide was in i’d swim in the ocean with the pelicans who would land just feet from me in the water and dunk their heads under and grab a fish. They were huge birds with unblinking eyes and big yellow beaks. The memory has faded now. I wish it were cemented better, but i remember how massive they were floating next to me in the water and how absolutely unbothered by my presence they were. I may as well have been invisible. Not one of them looked in my direction at any time during their fishing expedition. They were busy and i was irrelevant. This was the best vacation of my life, and probably always will be. As an introvert, to be able to experience nature while also being irrelevant and not having to interact…chef’s kiss! The beach was full of people drinking cocktails under umbrellas and scantily clad ladies laying out getting a tan under the sun, on the beach behind the expensive and bustling hotels. Then just as if there was an invisible fence under the sand separating the rest of the beach with mine, behind the run down hotel there was nothing and no one. No beach chairs, no umbrellas, no cocktail bars, and no people. Just how i liked it! Just beach. I could watch all the people doing their people things while i shelled with their noise a safe distance from me and no chance of requirement for interaction. The perfect vacation for a neurodivergent introvert. Again, chef’s kiss!
There was one interaction i didnt mind and that was the couple who had flown in to bring their toddler to the beach for the first time but they were only staying a day and they’d come at high tide…all the shells were under water. I was so recharged from no peopling for days at this point that i knew what to do. I took some of my collected shells and buried them back in the sand, letting the parents see where they were. They then directed their youngster to dig and lo and behold, he found treasure in the way of sea shells! They thought this was so cool. I wouldnt mind interacting with people so much if i only had to do it once a week. Then i might even enjoy the conversation. But, this is not possible as a living in this day and age, so you learn to enjoy the vacation when it comes around and tolerate interaction with people politely daily the rest of the year.
Come noon time a fierce looking thunderstorm would roll in off the ocean and i’d retreat to the hotel room to wash and sort my catch and take a nap to the sound of the rain and thunder. The storm was always followed by a rainbow and a trip back to the beach for further shelling. I shelled so much my eyeballs became scratched by salt spray and i could barely see by the last day. I spent most of it napping in the bed with my eyes closed because i had damaged them so badly but it was worth every minute spent on that beach. It was where i wanted to be, and i somehow understood that i wouldnt be back. My body felt the need to absorb and store as much of the beach as possible as it didnt see a return in my future. I forgot to eat at times. Sometimes i ate two meals a day. Sometimes one. I was singularly focused on shelling and pelicans. I dont think i did much talking besides conversing with the toddler and his parents that one day, the entire week. It was peaceful. No words. Only the sounds of the ocean and birds. Ocean…birds…thunder…ocean birds…..rinse and repeat times 7 days. It was a good time period of my life; that week. All alternate reality melted away and i was just there; present.
Well, 11 years later i was in a different logistical situation. I couldnt just up and leave the homestead. What would i do with the chickens and dogs, the orchard and green house? I also had to think about transportation differently as back then i was willing to fly to florida on a plane and nowadays im deathly afraid of both air and water travel. If i wreck in a car, the ems crew may put me back together. If i wreck in a plane or a boat, i dont see too many tv shows where they’re interviewing survivors, you know? Its a three day drive for one person in the car. Logistically and financially, a trip to Florida was just not possible. The hotel i wanted to be at also didnt even exist anymore. It went under shortly after my stay there. So, i bought a toy tub, a few bags of sand at sutherlands, and $400 worth of shells on etsy. (This is absolutely where i came up with my retirement plan to move to florida, rent an apartment, and sell shells to suckers on the internet where they pay $40 for twelve shells that i picked up for free and pay their own shipping as well. with the prolific shell collector i am, i could collect thousands without ever getting tired of it and then sell them to people on the internet who were not near an ocean.
So i began day one of my vacation by emptying a bunch of sand into the toy bin and hiding the entire box of shells in there. I probably could have done with more sand, but once i realized how heavy sand was, 3 bags would have to be enough if i still wanted to be able to move the tub to drag it in the house. Ants and mosquitos dictated that the activity be carried out in the house.
Then i began the tedious task of unearthing the shells, washing them in a home depot bucket, drying them, sorting them, and placing them in categorized bags labeled by type and size. All the while i had a youtube video of st pete beach playing on the laptop in the background so i could hear the ocean.
It was a most enjoyable staycation. The shellers on etsy did not disappoint. They shipped me some really nice specimens and i enjoyed cleaning and sorting them all.