With the placid waters of Crandon Park in our minds, we set out for Key Largo. We imagined beaches of white sand and azure water, something like the Bahamas.
Instead, we found small, rocky beaches couched between banks of mangroves.
A normal east coast beach is a kind of desert. Not much can live in the sand, just a few mollusks and crustaceans at the water line. Maybe some fish in the surf. Plants, the foundation of any ecosystem, can’t do much with the little crumbles of quartz.
In contrast, the beaches we experienced in Key Largo were disconcertingly alive.
Iguanas strolled the beaches looking for their next meals, barely deigning to acknowledge the presence of humans. Mangrove seed pods bobbed on the water. Black, partially decomposed leaves matted the underwater sand. Large fish lurked in the eelgrass. All kinds of who-knows-what floated suspended in the water and made it look like unfiltered French-pressed coffee.
No silky white sand, no bright blue water.
[To be fair to the Keys, we visited John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, where the beaches opened to Largo Sound, not the ocean itself. I can only assume that the oceanside beaches and the beaches in other sounds differ in their characters, and that more luxurious beaches can be found in the area.]
During this trip I’ve noticed a pattern. The pattern is visible in everyday life but seems to adopt a more pronounced character when tracked through strings of novel experiences.
It’s a pattern of expectation and violation of those expectations, and our relation to this pattern factors into the quality of our lives substantially.
Obviously, we must take on expectations for practical purposes. Expectations are beliefs, and our beliefs determine our behavior in the world. It makes sense to research, learn, speculate, predict so we can do things like plan a vacation, invest wisely, and mitigate risk.
But we’ve got to remember that expectations are products of knowledge, and humans aren’t known for their omniscience. Expectations can turn out wrong, and they frequently do. Probably, that’s par for the course.
If expectations usually prove wrong in one or many of their aspects, it makes no sense to feel disappointed when they do.
Most people see little point in fretting that the law of gravity continues to obtain at the moment they drop their ice cream, or that they aren’t able to fly when they flap their arms up and down. It’s just the way the world operates; why get upset?
I thought about this pattern as I laid on the beach at Key Largo with an array of small rocks jabbing my back through the towel.
So what if the “sand” consists of rock chunks? So what if the water resembles a compost heap? It is enough that I’m here. It is enough that I’m young and healthy. It is enough that I can walk to and from my car without aid of any equipment but my legs.
In Key Largo I was tempted to feel disappointed that reality hadn’t conformed to my imagination. I let my expectations go, though, and enjoyed the place for what it was. I’ll take that lesson in the art of happiness with me to future stops.
