Postcards

I went to the beach yesterday. My son needs to swim, needs the cure of the cold water, the magnesium, the ionisation, to be held up in the salt, the splash, the smell of the sea. 

I love it too, once I'm in. I don't like getting in, insulated with blubber though I am. We had to stay away over the blissfully hot bank holiday, because of the hordes, the crowds, of Dubliners come on packed buses and trains, to break lockdown and bring their city germs to us, the selfish fucks. I'm aware I'm lucky to live near the sea. The 5k limit has since been lifted and I won't complain anymore. But I wasn't going to more beautiful mountains or beaches outside my 2 or 5k limits, soo... 

But, yesterday was better, and I noticed a certain thing - while there are always the brave year rounders, many fabulous grannies who stride into the freezing water and plunge, and swim off briskly while I shiver up to my thighs and inch in incrementally, and Iron Man types who forge far out and swim off briskly into the distance, yesterday I noticed many Beautiful people of varying skin tones playing in the waves - a girl, in with her younger siblings, with long, curly hair who was wearing a form-fitting brown dress - not a burkini, as such, and such a dress as to be absolutely clinging once in the sea, romantically so, I don't know if it was a modesty protector or quite the opposite. And further down, past them, a tall young man with inky skin, the light shining off his back muscles - his identical friend stayed out but he braved the wavelets and emerged, silver chain sparkling. 

And then the chunky Brazilian guy in bright yellow shorts, abundant chest hair unmanscaped, lockdown style, and a girl I so wanted to be his girlfriend, unbelievably buxom, with cartoon hips and chest and ass, wearing the teeniest of electric blue bikinis, braving the water while her friend took photos. The teeny bikini, the ass, the photos, no way she could have been anything but Brazilian. She was statuesque and astonishing, but they didn't seem to make any contact with each other, wading into the cold water at a distance - maybe they'd had a row, and it messed up the planned photo shoot :)

I don't mean to exoticise or objectify these people, though I can't lie, it's a little difficult not to, and not to compare them to myself and my potatoey compatriots, shivering in the stiff breeze. Partly because they stand out, partly because they were more, more colourful, more beautiful, more visible against the greyish sea, and partly because it's just a new experience. Not the faded collection of pasty people it once hosted - I can't find the 60s picture I wanted and blogger's not letting me share another, so I'll have to let you use your imagination. 

It's hard to read comment threads at the moment - so much denial of racism, outright racism, American racist accounts masquerading as Irish, fuelling the fire. Confronting change and a demographic shift has made alt-right morons appeal to a lot of people here. It's bad. I don't have all the answers - no, I don't know what to do if every person in an impoverished country decides to come to our tiny island. My mother came here without much to offer, and I don't contribute a huge amount, so who would I be to suggest people shouldn't? I love an empty beach far more than a packed one, but why should I get to preserve a small population for my own enjoyment and comfort. I would happily swap some of the people spreading ugliness for our new generation of Irish people, if that's the only way to do it.