The Obsessions of Vacation

With my family, I spent most of the past week at the ocean, specifically the warm Gulf of Mexico, sitting on a beach chair under a sheltering umbrella, wondering why I found myself once again situated in the same spot, on the same stretch of beach, in the same “destination” with the same view of the horizon, that I had experienced the year before, and the year before that, and for several preceding years.

It’s got to be an obsession, is about all I can make of it.  Perhaps you have one, too.  All I know is I simply had to be there.

Matter of fact, everyone in my family appeared, at least during the week we were away, to have a similar disposition to want to do something repeatedly, which is a fair definition of “obsession.”  My son read three or four sci fi action adventure novels — in five days.  My daughter decided to be an artist, and so sketched out a view of our rented beach house’s kitchen, until the lure of riding the waves on a boogie board proved irresistible and became her obsession.  My wife seemed determined to bake in the sun, which she proceeded to do whenever she was not snapping photos with her digital Nikon — another obsession.

Me?  As is always the case during these summer interludes, I had several obsessions to indulge:  I was determined to avoid wearing socks of any kind (check); seek and find the world’s best fried fisherman’s platter (nada), and somehow, in the space of a few days, conjure the plot and characters of the novel of the century while nursing a salty dog on a bar stool at a windswept beachside tavern ( I got the bar right; the novel waits still).

Other than becoming a Hemingway or Hiassen, my only other repeatable obsession is to relax, which I suppose is everyone’s ultimate goal.  Harder said than done, as they say.  I cannot relax as long as there is green algae bloating the ocean water.  I cannot relax with anvil-shaped clouds looming over the shore landscape, lightning spitting across the sky and thunder rumbling, the sound amplified and scarier because I am out in the open and vulnerable.  I cannot relax because it’s typically up to me to make the right restaurant choice for dinner.  This is a nearly impossible and always thankless task because the familiar places from previous trips are either “under new ownership,” or so over-priced that to eat there would be an act of colossal stupidity.  $36 crab cakes, anyone?  I also obsess over what book to read, and obsess about whether to forego reading to sit in my beach chair and ponder the meaning of life — an endeavor made more urgent and relevant by the repetitious lapping of waves on to the sand.

A finger-painted image of the ocean

However, this time, I am glad to report, I found an obsession that occupied my time, caused me to relax, and resulted in my family smiling at me sympathetically:  electronic finger painting on my iTouch.

Laugh not.  The iTouch/iPhone App Store sells an application called “Brushes,” and with it, you can with very little practice (and no appreciable skill or talent), paint Winslow Homer-like seascapes on your phone screen.  I learned, doing this, that fingers are imprecise paintbrushes.  But Brushes compensates with a variety of brush styles and widths from hairline to cover-the-sky.  Your finger points and glides, swirls and pirouettes, and the app does the rest, as if a brush were attached to the end of your index finger.  There’s also a virtually endless range of colors, opacities and shadings available.  If this sounds like an unsolicited plug for Brushes, it is.  Great fun, especially when the alternative — pondering the fates of humankind or choosing between grouper or pizza — brings on a headache.

Now, back home, I wonder whether this obsession with Brushes was just a temporary fling into my imagined world, sitting under a thatched lean-to on a beach in Tahiti with Paul Gaugin, sharing an easel and throwing caution to the wind in splashes of brilliant, surprising colors.

Can you do that on a PDA or a telephone screen?  Now there’s a question worth pondering.