Edisto Island

Ghost crabs walk in the dune grass as we walk on the path to the beach. The wind still blows after yesterday’s storms. Wide bands of shells and shell fragments paint the sand. I stoop to choose the whole ones. Some day, I will learn the names of each type.

Watch out for the jellyfish, we tell the boys. Even dead, they can hurt you with stinging. We teach them how to see them, flattened and unmoving on the wet sand. When they learn, they help us see how many have been put on the beach by the storm.

Jellyfish bodies

in a line and we scream –

we want to leave

Ears hearing the wind, eyes watching the ground, hands holding bigger hands or waists tight, minds imagining a jellyfish sting pain. Too many senses stimulated with fear and newness, and we leave.

Two days a later we try again, pushing past declarations of fear and hatred of the beach. We must fix this fear, fix guilt for not knowing how their imaginations would respond to the idea of a still and translucent dead thing that can hurt you.

Botany Bay is on a different side of the island, with stronger waves, stronger tide and far fewer jellyfish. We try to fly a kite, but there is not enough wind. We look at shells, but we cannot take them home.

 Look at the waves, we say, see how strong they are. White on the top and green on the bottom. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have your swim clothes on. You can go closer.

Big, little, fast

waves, we are loud, too. Would you play?

We chase, retreat, wet.

This beach, that we loved for how quiet it was the first time we came, for the sights of its bare trees and shell covered sand, now is the beach that makes our boys brave with loud unpredictable waves that make them laugh and forget the jellyfish.