One of the complaints I hear often as we strive to be as normal as possible in our pandemic mode is, “I don’t have anything to do.” After the house has been remodeled and the garage painted, what do I do now? We are told to stay outside if we are in a group, and keep a distance from others if we can. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. I have a friend that figured it out.

I received an email asking if I would like to participate in a beach clean-up. It fits all of the requested criteria. We would be outside and not close together for any length of time. I said ‘yes’, jumping at the chance to do something that I thought was contributing to the health of my world, which includes the world’s beaches, as well as my personal heath, both mental and physical.

It was great fun. We met at the beach at 6:30. One of my friends there was in a mechanical scooter. He needed a beach wheelchair that had big wheels which wouldn’t sink into the sand. The lifeguards had one he could barrow. I said I’d push him. The wheelchair acted as my walker, and away we went.

We were cleaning the main beach in Laguna. It was close to where we live. What a haul we made! I pushed and Rich picked up what we discovered with a three-foot tool that had a grabber on the end. We made a great team and what an adventure it was.

We found two shoes but they didn’t match and they weren’t my size anyway. We dug out a quilt and a beach towel which were buried in the sand. The most interesting item we found was a girl’s black lace bikini bottom. We looked really hard to find the girl, but no luck.

It was an extraordinary day. It was legal, safe, social, and a wonderful outing for us.

I’m sure you can come up with a day that is extraordinary to enjoy, if you close your eyes and let your mind wander. There are so many things in each of our personal worlds that we tend to ignore or just take for granted. Pick one and turn it into an adventure. Your mind and body will thank you.