Oops, did I say “nude”? I meant new. Don’t be afraid of NEW beaches.
With one week left in our Costa Rican trip, my husband and I decided to check out a nude (darn, did it again) new beach, Playa Panama, just five minutes from our home. No one around here really talks about it, but we thought that might be a good thing ~ no damn tourists! So we went.
We soon found out why no one talks about it. It’s not as nice as the beach we normally go to, Playa Hermosa. We walked all the way down, then back again, but decided that because it’s rocky and muddy, we wouldn’t go back. But we would finish our walk.
At the risk of sounding jaded, I chose not to take my camera with me. I thought that after 9 weeks, I’d seen so many bugs, birds, fish, and creatures that I wouldn’t bother. Every single time I say that, I regret it. (Like the day we saw a bull running down our street. A bull, with horns running down our street. Fortunately we were in our car, but this was a street where many locals walk or ride their bikes. No camera then either.) Today we saw dozens of pink crabs scurrying across the sand and diving into their little crab caves. We saw iguanas eating leaves off the low-hanging trees, turkey vultures eating garbage, and pelicans snapping up fish off the beach at low tide. We also saw snails, real, live, crawling snails in their shells. Walking seashells! This country never ceases to amaze me.
The same advice goes for life and literature. Don’t be afraid to try nude new things. Even if you think you don’t you’ll like something, say a new genre or author, there are oftentimes snippets that will amaze you. If nothing else, it’ll give you something to gripe about, like stepping on rocks at the beach.
It’s easy to stay in one’s comfort zone, but that sounds like living in a rut to me.