Analog VR
Dylan Thomas’s Virtual Day at the Beach
The next best thing to an ocean breeze, the sound of waves, and sand in your fries.
I didn’t make it to the beach this past weekend. But I don’t regret it for a moment. Perhaps, like me, you had a sudden urge to spread out a blanket and lie on the sand listening to the waves with a book next to you. I don’t consider myself a beach person by any means, or for that matter a lounger around pools, but every so often I have a strong urge to be near or in the water.
And this was one of those weekends.
Instead I grabbed a blanket and a magazine, and drove to a nearby park. Within an hour or so lying under a shady oak tree, I recaptured that beach feeling. When I returned home I also experienced a familiar sense of sun and open-air exhaustion, the kind that you only get from a day at the shore. I could swear I smelled ocean air.
My beach cravings were satisfied without driving four hours in heavy traffic.
I know, I know that I’m vainly trying to relive the joyful beach days of youth, which unfortunately you can never capture again. Sorry, you can’t.
But you can come close by listening to or reading Dylan Thomas’s Holiday Memory. The great Welsh poet did many broadcasts for the BBC, including his now famous A Child…
