Be the Ball, I mean Beach, I mean…

Should be me, but isn't

Had a fine time with JP this past Saturday. We had some unexpectedly wonderful weather here in Jew-York New York City, so I packed us a light snack and headed to one of the city’s least-known and nicest beaches—Jacob Riis.

It’s an interesting spot for many reasons, some of which have nothing to do with the lovely scenery. The park at the beach was first opened to the public in 1936, an early project of Robert Moses, after his Long Island-theft phase, but well before he became the unquestioned ruler of New York City and all its residents. (For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, please move out of the post and read, The Power Broker, by Robert Caro; the book is 1,344 pages, so I’ll give you a half hour to finish and then come back.) As such, the park is a beauty—lots of sandy beach, plenty of playgrounds and basketball courts for non-swimmers, a massive Art Deco clubhouse. Just ducky.

Unfortunately, it is about as far from any form of public transportation as any place can be and still remain within the city. Robert Moses history buffs such as myself know that this titanic, racist figure from the city’s past laid that out by design. No public transportation and only the approved, white majority would come to the beach. The more things change…

Anyway, there was an odd moment on the beach. JP and I were practically alone, building sand castles and collecting clam shells when it occurred to me how great a thing I was doing for my son as a dad. I really thought of it that way. Here was something small but memorable that my boy could look back on as an adult when I’m a broken-down alcoholic wreck, and know that at least once his Dad did something for him.

I find that I have these sorts of self-serving moments quite a bit. I’m having a fine time with my son and–boom–somehow I pop out of the moment and all I’m thinking about is how Dad-like I’m being. Terrible, and something I’m constantly working on eliminating, but there it is. I’m like the reverse Buddha of Dads—never in the moment.

But at least we got a nice collection of shells.

11 thoughts on “Be the Ball, I mean Beach, I mean…”

As parents we tend to focus on how much we are fucking up our kids. However there are so many times that they will look back on as good. Times that we don’t even know about. As long as your kids are living a healthy, well cared for existance these moments will come naturally. This was a touching post.

I liked the post too.

I think that tendancy is part of a more general tendancy that I refer to as “anticipatory nostalgia.” Rather than thinking, “this is fun” I find myself thinking “this will seem nice when I recall it years from now.” It is a kind of alienation, but at the same time I’m not entirely sure its not somehow an irreducible artifact of self reflective consciousness. And I’m not sure the Buddha would disagree.

Anway, its probably true that you were objectively being a good Dad at the time so at least there’s that.

I had this same good mom moment at a beach recently … after a storm blew 4 big sailboats on shore, I went with my 3 yr old son while my girls were at school. It was so cool that, at noon, I picked up the 5 year old and took the two to the beach. At 3pm, I picked up the 7 year old and … took all three back to see those boats.

Strange, ferrying kids from school to beach all day, seemed a bit extravagant on the one hand, but really felt like I was giving each of them the chance to see something you just don’t see everyday.