Perfume Diary: Under The Boardwalk (RS)
I am at the beach this week -- in Ocean City, Maryland, to be specific -- holed up in a rented condo with my partner’s family; one of those creaky duplexes right near the shore where every indoor surface is always sandy and the towels are perennially damp and scented with a fine mist of mildew and coconut and sea brine. I’ve never been here before, to the kind of casual, cheesy Eastern beach town that boasts as its main attractions an abundance of dinosaur-themed mini-golf courses, a late night bowling alley with two for one Corona pitchers, rival frozen custard establishments, and several crab shacks where you could ride right up to the outdoor patio on a Jet Ski. Everyone here is sunburned and dishabille, having forgotten or discarded half of their outfits somewhere along the way. Women stroll along the Coastal Highway in flowy pants and bikini tops, or in neon pink rash guards with floral boy shorts, their butts emblazoned with the names of surfboard brands from the other side of the country. Any shoe more complex than a flip-flop feels out of place, laborious.
The first day here, I wore structural crop top and tall espadrilles to a brew pub called “Big Peckers” and experienced the kind of side-eye from the lobster red clientele that can only be described as I know you are not from around here. I packed an entire suitcase full of clothing that fit into my city-dwelling conception of an ocean fantasia: billowing caftans, oversized beaded earrings in the shape of tropical fruits, a blush pink satin robe, a leopard-print ruched swimsuit in the 1940s Esther Williams style, high-waisted pants with a maximalist floral print that reminded me of Rita Hayworth’s off-duty regalia, high-heeled lavender suede sandals. And I haven’t really been able to wear any of it, because it doesn’t quite make sense here. Our rental opens onto the beach, so the most logical costume is bare feet and a big towel; anything else looks and feels like trying too hard. I know that most people go to the beach, at least around here, to wear as little clothing as possible, for as long a time as they can get away. They go because they can walk right into bars in their sandals and mesh cover-ups and order a frozen daiquiri with extra whipped cream and a basket full of fried seafood smothered in tartar sauce. They go because they enjoy the feeling of becoming the ocean, your body constantly wet and salty and a little cold. They enjoy consuming the ocean; tossing saline and battered chum back at seaside eateries like ravenous seagulls alighting on a sandbar.
As a person from the landlocked desert West, I’m having a bit of trouble relaxing into this vibe. The Eastern beach feels like purposeful forgetting, like a place people come to drown something: sorrows, memories, boredom. The water is murky, milky and churning, a bit threatening and Goth as hell. As a child, the beaches we visited were hundreds of miles away, placid and warm, and my family had to plan for a year in advance to visit them: Hawaii, Cabo San Lucas. There were flights involved and therefore heavy anticipation and packing lists and a big to-do about The Beach To Come; my parents obsessively planned everything, so as to maximize our time near the ocean, which may as well have been as foreign to us desert children as the moon. Snorkling, whale watching, rental kayaks, Banana boats, boogie boarding, tide pool exploration, aquarium excursions, chartered tours to secret cays, the forced eating of raw oysters (“just try one, it won’t bite you”), outdoor pig roasts. Beaches, to me, always came with an exhausting agenda, and a certain number of outfits a person might need to fulfill the calendar. Perhaps this is why it is still hard for me to just be by the sea; in the back of my mind I still hear my father, ever the camp counselor, telling us that we have to be down at the dock in twenty minutes in our wetsuits to take the beginner surfing lessons that none of us asked for. All I wanted to do on beach trips as a child was read a book under an umbrella, and it was always implied that this was, in some essential way, a waste of time. The ocean was this vast, unknowable treasure chest available to us for such a limited time, and we had to dive in while we had the chance.
Easterners have a different relationship to the sea. As far as I can tell, the attitude in Ocean City is that the beach is sort of just there, as banal as a gas station or a Starbucks. Everyone goes every single day; Ocean City is a thin barrier island that is barely a mile across, so you cannot help but hit the beach one way or another simply by navigating it. Stepping onto sand is an inevitability, a routine. If you want to read a book, you do it next to the waves. If you want to take a walk, you walk down the shoreline. The ocean is the backdrop for daily life, rather than the interruption of it. I’m still trying to find my tidal rhythm.
I will say that I am finding it easier to settle into this place by wearing a new Byredo perfume that I brought with me -- the one thing in my suitcase invisible enough that I feel comfortable wearing it in excess at Big Peckers. Sundazed, the latest offering from Instagram’s favorite perfume house, smells like very fine tanning oil. It’s Hawaiian Tropic, but make it fashion. It’s an Orange Julius infused with neroli essence, violet-flavored saltwater taffy. They say there is a “cotton candy” note in there, but what they mean is that it dries down to clarified butter, the same way that some sunscreens give off the sizzling smell of cooking spray as they evaporate. Sundazed is undeniably, without a doubt, the smell of a boardwalk: it’s funnel cake and kelp and anti-chlorine shampoo and fresh limeade in a styrofoam cup. It has the sticky sweetness of a high-traffic beach town -- this is not the smell of an isolated cove with white sands and Macaws circling. This is daily, ritualistic summering; it is bonfires on the beach with Solo cups, it is putting lemons in your bangs to lighten them, it is shimmying into bikini bottoms that are still damp from the day before. It’s easing me into this place, this mindset. Maybe I will learn to relax, learn to actively forget. I learned yesterday how to peel a pound of boiled shrimp with my bare fingers, slipping off their exoskeletons with a flick of one manicured nail. Anything is possible.