The Full Shower
written by: Christine Redman-Waldeyer
It’s the last day of our trip to the Boca Raton, Delray area of Florida. I’m up early enough I hope, I think to escape the need to slather myself with SPF 50 Sunscreen. My hair is tucked under my cap all in an effort not to have to do a full shower when I get back to the hotel room. I want one last walk. I love walking. I love it for the exercise, but I love it more for the surprises it always brings.
I pull my coverup over my swimsuit, slip out of the cool hotel room into the cooler hallway before the slap of humidity blankets me once I have exited the Wyndham’s automatic sliding doors at the entrance. My pink flip-flops are in hand once my feet hit the sand. I go left; it’s the easier walk on Deerfield Beach. It ends at an inlet and forces me to turn around. It’s important because I can easily walk five or more miles and lose track of time. I walk under the fishing pier and let my ankles do the hard work of carrying me along the water past the many zoned areas protecting turtle nests.
I take a long deep breath. Something I noticed I do when I feel deeply overwhelmed or saddened: I release my breath. It is the sighting of the familiar triangle red-taped zone that brings me back to an earlier evening in the week. I walked at dusk when the wind brought on waves that overtook one of the turtle nests. A woman about the same age as me was waving frantically for me to join her. When I slow jogged to where she was, I realized she was trying to save eggs from being swept out to sea. She’s pointing to another nest further away from the water. “We need to move them there.” She leaves me and begins digging within the other triangle.
I am torn; eggs are rolling out to sea and yet I realize she is disturbing another nest. I leave the eggs, tap her on the shoulder. She looks up; she hadn’t even noticed me. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I say over the wind. “I would hate to see you get into trouble,” as I point to the signs that threaten fines or imprisonment. She nods in understanding, and we go back to the nest. “I’ll call.” I find the number located on the warning sign. I’m not sure what I thought. I guess I imagined a turtle ambulance of sorts showing up, saving the day but none of this happened. Instead, I am led through a series of preprogrammed messages asking me to press this number for this, and another number for that, and yet another number, and another. I hang up. Try my daughter’s phone. She is back at the hotel. I imagined her asking the hotel staff who would know who to call to save the turtle eggs. But there is no time. The eggs are rolling out of the nest one by one into the ocean with each wave’s eager grasp.
I reach my daughter, but the woman is frantic, and I am quick to understand my error for lost time. “Sorry, Jess; long story. I’ll call you back. I gotta go,” and hung up. I had promised her I would be back by 5:30 so we could shower and have dinner by 6:30. The day before I walked for three hours. “Mom. Yes, walk but can you come back within an hour this time?” she asked impatiently.
I look at the woman bent over, cupping her hands trying to keep the eggs from hitting the water. “Okay, let’s just put as much sand as we can back over the nest. Maybe they will have a chance,” I say with some authority. She nods. We do our best to cover the gaping hole the waves have dug away at. “I’m so sorry,” I say to her knowing deep down these efforts would inevitably not help.
She sweeps her hair out of her eyes that has been uncontrollably blowing across her face to look me in the eyes, says “It’s okay; you tried. You had a phone. I didn’t even have a phone to call anyone.”
I nod, begin to walk away, and look back over my shoulder but only briefly because I can’t bear to watch the sea steal any more eggs. She too walks in the opposite direction.
In a last-ditch effort to save the eggs, I see a young couple sitting on the beach not far away. I run up. “Are you from the area?” They both nod yes and I retell the story of the eggs as briefly as I can. “Do you know who to call?” The young couple look at each other, then back at me. The young woman says, “Sorry, no.”
I redial my daughter. “Jess. I am so sorry. I will be later. It’s a long story.” Then I google, “Can turtle eggs hatch in the ocean?” The sad answer was a resounding no. The embryos drown. As best as I can, I try to brush away the thought to finish my walk against the wind.
Today, the water is still. It holds that aqua-blue color that calls out to you from vacation pamphlets. That color that promises Eden, a promise I learned quickly it can’t keep. On the way, I find plastic bags. My hands are full. Flip flops in one and my bitter cup of coffee from the complimentary bar in the hotel room in the other. I drink it up fast, pull the cap off, and push in the plastic bag that looks like it held someone’s sandwich. There are no garbage cans nearby.
When I get towards the Inlet, a powerful pipe is pushing water into the sea. It has a smell that is hard to describe and it’s horrible. I take my phone out of my small purse slung across my shoulder and start taking photos of a long-legged bird sitting on top of the pipe watching the water rush out. It’s then when I noticed a white-haired man with a professional camera standing next to me. “Bird watching,” he says. “Do you know what that is?” he asks. I shake my head no. “It’s a Yellow-crowned night-heron looking for a quick meal.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say back. “Thank you.” I see a trash can in the distance and make my way towards it to empty my hands of the garbage I have been carrying. There is an anger that comes like a wave over me, like I am one of those ping-pong-looking eggs that the vast sea laughs at and swallows up. I am thinking about the bastard who left their bag behind. I am angry at myself for feeling this responsibility for what is to come next for our seas, our land, our air, air that I thought was safe because birds fly. I am quick to scold myself internally. “They are not safe; they need to nest on land.” I give one last long look at the heron watching carefully over the spitting pipe before heading back towards the fishing pier and the orange building that is our hotel in the far distance.
On the walk back, I come across yet another clear plastic bag and this one is larger than the last. I can’t walk past this anymore than I walked past the sandwich bag. Again, where I am walking, no garbage cans. I pick it up, rinse it in the water, and roll it up to carry with my flip-flops.
It was the visit to the turtle hospital earlier in the week that reminded me of the dangers of plastic bags and straws, where I retold my egg story, when the nice volunteer responded, “Nature; it’s just nature.” When I blinked back tears, she quickly realized her mistake and, in an effort to comfort me, said, “I know it is cruel, but you did the right thing.”
Having knowledge tucked so close to the heart after the visit, I was shocked when we went to the food store that plastic bags were still legal in Florida, especially given the efforts to protect turtles. In New Jersey, we have already moved to a “bring your own bags” law.
On the way back from this last walk despite my promise not to get too sandy, too salty, I find that the sun is out in fuller intensity and is hot. I long to take a dip in the turquoise bath in front of me and hold out until I am in front of our hotel. The plastic bag I tuck tight under my purse, so it doesn’t blow away and I pull my cover up off before laying my pink flip flops on top, sort of a way to mark along the beach “my stuff.”
I’ve always been drawn to bright colors to identify my children in the water, my stuff on the beach. They are carefully laid out at the water’s edge where I can watch as I float like an egg on top of the ocean. As I do, one of two girls probably around eleven- or twelve years old screeches “Ew!” and swims away from something floating in the water. I swim over. It is yet another plastic bag. I grab it, hold it up to them. “Just a bag,” I say. They look over without saying anything. I leave the ocean to deposit it with the other bag, feel the cool breeze on my back, and duck back in the warm embrace of the ocean one last time.
As I do, I notice a piece of white plastic floating nearby on the surface of the water that probably had once been a milk container. I grab that too. I hadn’t expected it to break apart, escape my hands in pieces, pieces I could only imagine would turn into those microplastics we’ve been learning about. I take what is left of it in my hand out with me as I leave the water, leaving time now for that much-needed full shower.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
It is a hope with this essay I raise awareness of the crisis we face environmentally. A recent trip to Florida made it clear we have a long road ahead of us and it will take all of our combined efforts to bring back the health of this planet.
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