Umbrellas on the Ocean

Ao Nang, Thailand - November 2024

I tried my best to stay content on the shore, looking into the blue-green waves and the distant limestone cliffs with a longing I swallowed in gulps along with the black currant jelly drink I had bought from one of the 7/11’s we had passed earlier.

My fellow travelers had stripped off their clothes, bathing suits underneath, and dipped into the water. But as per usual, I made the most sensible decision I could for my well-being, a compromise to still enjoy the sun without putting myself in jeopardy.

As a sun-sensitive gal with an inability to tan and an increased risk of skin cancer, I generally stay covered in the sun. I had on a long kurta and palazzo pants, lathered up with sunscreen, and planted myself in the little smidge of shade we could find. I took on the responsibility of watching our belongings. I sat there, a guardian of sorts with my wide-brimmed sun hat and my umbrella puled out for some extra shade.

I tried my best to look around with wide-eyed curiosity, betraying my true desire to be in the water too. The last time I swam in the ocean – a risk I knew I was taking – was like heaven, but led me to a fiery hell for weeks after with a nasty 2nd degree sunburn along my back that peeled off translucent swaths of skin. That had left me in bed and out of work for a few days and with a prescription for arthritis ointment that helps more severe burns. After that, I swore I could never risk such adventure again.

Being a beach lover, and with a preference for warm, tropical and humid climates, I often feel condemned to a life of watching my happy place from the sidelines forever.

Earlier the same day I’d partially scratched the itch to be in the water by going on a kayak tour through the neighboring mangroves. I thought that would be enough, paddling out into an extending sheet of blue dotted with outcrops of the sheer limestone cliffs for which the southwestern coast of Thailand is known.

I thought my sense of wonder and adventure would be satiated as we ducked into the mangroves, maneuvering between branches and roots, me at the very front of the group along with our tour guide. He tried his best to stay calm as he corralled the other 20 kayakers who decided to go in every direction except behind him.

We wound through narrow sections and steered clear of monkeys, watching lazily from the thicket of trees. With each paddle I felt the magic of sailing through water, a feeling that has always felt soothing and aligning. I thought that would be enough, and that while watching others dip into the ocean, I wouldn’t be bothered by the fact that this was one of the activities that my genetic condition made harder to do.

It turns out that kayaking wasn’t enough of a consolation prize. I was still bothered, aching to be part of that world.

There is a kind of blue water that is deliciously inviting, almost dangerously so. The kind of blue that makes you want to open your mouth and drink in all the ocean, or as I have felt before, want to plunge in and keep going as far as the eye can see. This water stretching ahead of me was that kind of blue, an almost dream-like aqua I wanted to touch and taste.

From the shore I watched the fishing boats, almost strategically anchored in incremental widths apart. With their curved, sleek figures low against the water, they gave the impression of lingering, waiting and watching for the right moment to set out to sea. It was hard to tell whether there were fishermen on board, or whether the boats were on a break while their owners had gone elsewhere.

I took out my journal. Tried to write while munching on the 7/11 snacks. When one of my friends came back to take a break from the salt and sun, she suggested that I get in the water.

“But I don’t have a swimsuit on. Besides I'll burn” I said.

“You could just go with your clothes on,” she suggested, shrugging. That was such a simple idea I hadn’t considered. It took me a moment to let go of the possibility of ruining my outfit.

I didn’t have any experience wearing a bikini in public, not to mention revealing clothes all that much in general. But I did have a bralette that looked like a bikini top and I could keep my palazzo pants on. More importantly though, my worry was about being in direct sun, the UV rays magnified by refracting light from the waves. No matter how much sunscreen I could slather on, it wouldn’t protect me.

Then, I looked at my SPF umbrella.

No one here would recognize me, so I took off my kurta top, drenched myself with sunscreen as much as I could, and then let my umbrella be the chaperone I had always needed for jaunts in the sun.

I took my time walking along the water until I reached a spot that seemed calm and shallow enough to get in. The water was refreshing and cool in the heat, but warm enough to let my body sink in without shock. The sand started out rocky and coarse, but the more I walked into the water the smoother it become underfoot.

I bent into the water as much as I could so that I was submerged almost up to my neck. I did not want to reveal so much of myself, since I couldn’t see who was watching.

As I slipped into the water, the fishing boats drew nearer. One began to move, the engine humming to life and I hoped they would skirt around me if I ended up being in their path. They edged out slowly, in pace with me as I wandered deeper into the water. All the while, I held the umbrella, my hand holding the handle just under the surface. The umbrella shielded my face, neck and shoulders from the sun, which was now approaching its descent along the western sky. From time to time I would have to shift the umbrella at an angle to keep the sun off my chest. But it worked. Remarkably well.

It was luxurious to let my body lean into the water, to feel alive and present. No cell phone, not another soul beside me. I was fully here, the squish of sand burying my feet and the sparkle of sun on boat’s wake. The flow of water pulling my cells into it’s orbit, my limbs lightening as my body-weight was held by more of the world than my own flesh.

I was very much here, present because the umbrella did something I hadn’t known I needed. It outsourced my worry, like some kind of amulet that took away the negative possibilities of being burned, and increasing my risk of skin cancer exponentially. As dramatic as that might sound, the worry I constantly carry on my mind is very real and stops me from doing many things for which my heart longs.

Rather than find a workaround or problem solve, my default has always been to write off experiences or postpone decisions because I’ve already assumed that the outcome for me won’t be good, or at best, easy. I did this with anything that had a variable beyond my control: I had hesitated to travel because I thought my eyesight limitations would make many experiences inaccessible. I'd learned to close off my heart too. And I stopped myself from sharing my creative work with others for fear of being burnt in a different kind of way.

The umbrella began to feel symbolic of something else. The choice of freedom. It was a tool by my side that gave me access to the same experiences others take for granted, with just a touch of quirkiness.

I don’t know what I looked like to the fishermen on their boats, watching my umbrella, white and blunt, bobbing against the blue of sea and sky. I don’t know if anyone on the shore even noticed…but who cares?

Who cares??

The joy of my own presentness in the moment, being full, undistracted, drinking in the experience of solitude in the company of the elements vetoed any amount of self-consciousness and inhibition that seem to be my modus operandi on a daily basis.

I treaded water there, umbrella in hand, looking into the blue beyond, and then at the cliffs with their etched, plunging crevasses and sprinklings of green, at the brown hulls of the fishing boats pointed out to sea, and at the sky with a hint of clouds rolling into the afternoon. In a matter of hours, the clouds would take over, and monsoon showers would mix with seawater. Lightning would streak down from the sky and once the rain subsides everything would be awash in purple as the sun sets behind a curtain. It would be magical and ethereal, the humidity sticking to our clothes and salt embedded into our lips and the strands of our hair that were momentarily soaked in the downpour. All the water would mingle and all the moments would mingle in my memory as a wonderous calm that took over the usual chatter In my mind.

After an eternity in the water I could feel my skin begin to wrinkle and tighten and my throat dry from lack of hydration. It was time to retreat and go back onto land. If I could be a mermaid, a siren poised on a rock between land and sea, I would welcome such a transformation. But I dragged my human legs, heavy with sopping wet cotton pants onto the shore. Sand clung to the hems of my pants and caked the soles of my feet. My skin began to dry almost instantly as I used the umbrella to shield my upper body from the sun which had become stronger as soon as I left the breezes of the water.

Sweaty, salty. Wet and utterly fulfilled. I give credit to the umbrella, a shield and a magic wand that squashed a mental block I had for so long. If I can swim in the ocean, at the equator and come back without a burn on my body, maybe I can do anything. I just need a little willingness to look ridiculous, and to embrace workarounds that might make me stand apart.

Now, when I go to the beach, I plunge in, fully clothed, umbrella and all.