The Beach and Suffering Beautifully

As I approach the ocean, an ecosystem of which my body is not designed to survive, I relish in the irony. Instead of fins, I have feet, yet something always calls me back to its depths. A place of beauty is matched with equal strife, as many people admit that "they love the beach, but hate the sand.” What seems like a trivial opinion to me speaks volumes about a person's worldview. Sand clings to everything we wish to keep clean; it wedges into our shoes, the pages of our books, and our cars on the ride home. Although these things may seem annoying, they are necessary. Embracing the grains of the shoreline is to relinquish my locus of control, and through this humility, I find peace. To act as if everything should be the way I desire backfires when I anticipate beauty without paying the tithe to recognize it.

Being at the beach is no easy task for me, as I must wear a compression stocking to walk anywhere without pain. Though at the edge of the access’s parking lot, I take it off in a liberating fashion for once. Sadly, not necessarily because I want to, but because the sand and saltwater will degrade the mercury that has been infused into the fabric. With no aid, I trek the boardwalk, and by the time I reach the sand, I’m sharply reminded of my limitations. Yet in that moment, with my left foot touching something other than that damned stocking, everything becomes clear. I step into the grains with joy because I was never promised the chance to at the old age of 25. The swelling in my leg fades into the background as I observe a seagull riding the wind's lift. Those little guys might not be conscious in their freedom, but the grace in which they soar speaks to me in a way that they are no different than me, and watch how they simply persist.

American Beach Sunset, Amelia Island, FL - Jared Fredrick Loeb

Like life, sand embodies thousands of tiny irritations all insisting on their presence. This irritation allows me to know that I am not alive, but instead living and pressed into something tangible. I walk through it not because I think suffering indicates strength, but to arrive at a place upon my own volition. When I arrive at the water, chilled and heaving with its rhythm, my feet are already tender from the journey, and I feel so much more because I have earned the ease. My life has not been a postcard; it is not clean and posed as we all wish it could be. It's full of grains that chafe, moments that scrape against the tenderness I so long to preserve. There are mornings when waking up is like walking barefoot on gravel, afternoons when everything I touch leaves its imprint on me, but I welcome all of this. I crave clarity and ease, even if it’s within the confines of unsettlement. Pleasure doesn't exist in a void. It is a byproduct of friction, the sand caught in the folds of the day.

To worry too much about the sand is to forget that abrasion is not the enemy, as without friction, we never allow the final product of erosion. The sky, the seagulls, the vastness beyond; these are overlooked when we fixate on what merely clings to our feet. It is to fixate on the sting of saltwater, choosing to ignore how it purifies our skin and wounds. Discomfort is not a punishment; it is a sculptor, relentless and indifferent, yet exacting in its purpose. Struggle is not an exception to life’s design; it is the proof of being alive, just as being happy is. Joy is not granted in isolation but made legible by what precedes it. Without resistance, there is no growth, just like lifting weights. Without the noise of the wave’s collapse, we would never recognize the silence that follows. The whitewater that foams at my ankles reminds me that the waves have spent themselves. That is the point; peace is not the absence of hardship, but its quiet resolution.

There is no clean entrance to what we call beauty, because beauty was never meant to be sterile. The world is harsh by design. The birthing process itself begins with a scream, our first protest to a life we never chose, yet must live fully. We will suffer scratches and nicks, be worn down in places we wish to remain untouched, and eroded by forces outside our control. This may seem cynical until reminded that erosion is also a form of shaping. Each grain that meets my feet is abrasive and hot, yet a reminder that I am still here, still capable of walking forward despite it all. I have not only been given the chance to feel this discomfort, but the time to ponder what it all means. So when the sand clings to your wet legs, don’t curse it, let it cling. Let it testify to your willingness to step into the world as it is, not as you wish it to be. Let it be a small but enduring proof that struggle and beauty are not at odds, but rather the same story told in two voices. One whispering pain, the other singing grace, both held beneath your feet.

American Beach Homes , Amelia Island, FL - Jared Fredrick Loeb