Mr. Sandman

I had all my excuses lined up and ready to roll when my sister’s voice came slicing through my brain.

“Get on the train and go!”

This was excellent advice and what’s really interesting about the situation was that my sister was nowhere near me at the time.

No, her urgently encouraging comment rang through my head like an alarm bell after getting a whiff of the Grade A bullshit I was trying to tell myself.

Last week it looked like I was heading for yet solitary Saturday, where I go to the gym, catch some sun in my local park before heading home for a night of take-out and Netflix.

I was actually trying to tell myself that I couldn’t find anything interesting to do—in New York freaking City. Yeah, I know, that’s a majestic load of crapola that bears absolutely no resemblance to reality, but the comfort zone works in all sorts of sneaky ways.

I dismissed this screaming falsehood, checked a website listing for events in the Big Apple, and I came up with a humdinger.

It seemed that the 2019 Annual Sand Sculpting Competition was happening in Coney Island at the very moment. It sounded so cool—artists were coming down to the beach to create some incredibly beautiful work.

My mother had creative spirit and a love for ceramics and working in clay. While she was never a fan of the beach, this contest made me think of her and I really thought I should go.

“But it’s too late,” I whined. “It started already and I have to recharge my phone before I leave and that’ll take forever…”

And that’s when my sister-voice alarm went off, just as it done back in January when we forged our Mutual Yentah Agreement, vowing to help each other achieve our respective resolutions.

Back then she had pushed me out the door to go to a local Meet-up event with the words “Get in a cab and go!”

Those words came back to me last week. Hell, all I had to do was jump on the N train and I’d be at Coney Island in no time. But it would mean—gasp!—changing my routine and getting up of my ass.

Send Me a Dream

And that’s what I did, reminding myself that, schmuck, it doesn’t matter if the competition started already.

Right now, the artists have nothing but sand piles to work on. It’ll be a couple of hours before anything really emerges. Get out that Metro Card and head for the beach.

Of course, the N train was out of service and I had to get a D train instead and I was pissing and moaning the whole time.

And speaking of pissing, nature started seriously calling halfway through the trip and those last grinding minutes as we pulled in the final stop had more suspense than an Alfred Hitchcock film festival.

I’m happy to report that I made it to one of the boardwalk’s facilities without an industrial accident. And I’m absolutely ecstatic to tell you that the sand sculpting competition was fantastic.

I arrived at the halfway point of the contest, so I could see where the artists were going with their vision and how they had started with nothing but sand.

There were castles, alligators, octopi, and a naked lady just to name a few of the sculptures.

I slammed so many photos onto Facebook that my phone percentage total was down to the single digits.

I was amazed at the patience these people were displaying, working so hard even though their work would vanish back into the beach by sunrise.

It was a beautiful sunny day and even though I was by myself, I was doing something I wanted to do.

Plus, there was such a cordial atmosphere that I was soon speaking with artists and spectators alike.

In fact, after the competition I struck up a conversation with a woman walking down the boardwalk and we wound up having dinner last night and going to see Shakespeare in a neighborhood park.

Years ago, I read about sand mandala, a Buddhist tradition of creating and then destroying elaborate geometric configurations to symbolize the belief in the transitory nature of spiritual life.

Yes, material life is transitory, but there’s no law that says we can’t have some fun along the way.

You just have to listen to your sister.