Vacation Week
Maintaining a delicate balance.

June 29, 2001 8:55 a.m.

he sun is hot, the beer is cold, and the thoughts are long and languid. It is vacation week at the ocean.

We do this every year. Fourteen or so of our closest immediate family members, plus a parasitic teenage guest or two, pile into a large house near the Corolla Lighthouse. Huge stores of provisions are loaded in: the better parts of pigs and cows; eggs, fruits, vegetables, bags of candy bars, cookies, and enough beer and wine to stun a Russian division. Older brother Ron and his family has come in the night before from Grenada, bearing a bottle of ether-clear rum. They report that a tour of the rum works found various spices floating in the huge vats, including very large paint chips. It has been a long time since the last lead buzz, which scientists tell us can last a lifetime. One assumes we'll turn to the chore soon enough.

Vacations like these, of course, are much about family, and more than one friend has observed that their own families could not gather under one roof for much more than a holiday meal. They ask the secret for success. The answer is fairly simple: People are like nations, and nations get along best when they are given space and respect, no matter how little they deserve either. During the day, we are a group of individuals: walking, running, sunning, swimming, fishing, reading, doing business over the computer, practicing musical instruments, and in the junior division chasing chicks. These are undertaken alone or in small clusters.

We all gather for the evening meal, at which time it is imperative to know which subjects to avoid. In our family, that means most of the big ones. Politics is given the lightest of treatments as part of the family is fairly conservative and part is routinely liberal. The latter sector, in fact, tends to grab the nose when it is mentioned that this correspondent writes a column for the highly esteemed NRO. Anna Quindlen is their gal.  

  Religion also gets a pass. Part of the family is somewhat Presbyterian. Part is lapsed Presbyterian. Part is Jewish. As for the others, who the hell knows. Alan Greenspan seems to be highly regarded, as does some Greek god named Sampras. Small talk keeps large families together. The bitten tongue speaks the language of tranquility.

This being the ocean, there is one grand subject that is unavoidable: Mother Nature. Her wonders are much praised, as are her moods, for the weather has been good.

Yet as it happens, I am one of those people who responds to those "Love Your Mother" bumper stickers with a grimace. Vacation is one time of the year I try to patch things up with the Old Girl.

This is not to suggest an abandoning of principles. The first thing to remember about Mother Nature is that she will drop you in your tracks at her first possible convenience. Yes, she has her beautiful sunsets and breathtaking vistas. But she also has her plagues, tidal waves, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, famines, and mudslides.

Indeed, the Green Parent lays her traps everywhere, and so at any given second countless humans are being struck down by lightning bolts, falling off cliffs, being crushed beneath falling tree limbs, disappearing in quicksand traps, succumbing to snake bites, perishing in swarms of hornets, and otherwise turning toes up via any number of deadly caresses.

As long as we're on the subject (which will not be raised at dinner tonight) it is also quite clear she hasn't much of a sense of humor. Quite the contrary. She seems to delight in torturing her children. The most glorious of her bounties, we are constantly told, are deadly — from cigars and bacon-wrapped filets to salt on the popcorn. She creates in us a love of beauty, and then steals beauty away day-by-day, year-by-year, as we slowly turn into hideous ogres. There are many ogres on the beach — more it seems than last year.

Yet despite all that it is hard to hold a grudge against the Old Girl while lying on her soft sandy belly and turning a pleasant brown beneath the blazing orb she has hung so perfectly in the sky. Yes, we know the orb is raising within us a bumper crop of cancer cells, but this week we ignore all that. In the same spirit we shall not linger on the subject of that poor fellow who was sucked out to sea this morning by a rip tide. Just as we get along inside the house by overlooking human flaws, we shall do the same on behalf of She who will one day kill us.

If that's not tolerance, the word has no meaning. And sometimes, one must add, Mother Nature sends an unexpected valentine. The other night I was sitting on the deck, trying to write a song. Inspiration was dead, and determination was close behind. My only companion was a just-emptied bottle of Beck's rested on the railing. Suddenly, a sea breeze flew across the dunes and made the bottle sing. It wasn't the hottest lick one would ever hear, but in this world you've got to take what you can get.

The sun is hot, the beer is cold, and the thoughts are long and languid. One or two may make sense, but this is vacation so who's counting?