On Fluidity and Fun

Beach days, forced fun, kids at play, teriyaki bowls.

Kiddo and the Warthog had the day off from school on Wednesday, so Mrs. CWD and I packed them up early and hightailed it north to Plum Island, where we spent the morning vacillating between fifty-degree ocean water and ninety-degree air temperatures¹, joyous and despondent moods. After two hours and change on the beach, we called it a day², and headed into Newburyport proper for some lunch and ice cream³. We trekked back to the car as temperatures crested one-hundred degrees, with everyone physically and emotionally exhausted.

The beach day was in stark contrast to the one we spent just days earlier, over the weekend, a few miles south and east in Gloucester. While the thirty-degree swing in temperature may have played a role in mood, I think the biggest factor was the fact that on Sunday we spent the day with Auntie CWD, Uncle Steady, and the Cousins CWD. Somehow, someway, having four kids on a beach was easier than two⁴.

While Kiddo and Warthog were temporarily placated with snacktime on Wednesday, Mrs. CWD and I tried to get to the bottom of that paradox. Commonsense would suggest that twice as many kids means twice as many opportunities for disaster. But as we talked through the actual logistics of it, things started to become more clear. Really, it came down to the fact that Steady Jr. and Kiddo make perfect playmates together — being the distraction that the other needs to enjoy all that the beach has to offer⁵. This eases the pressure off us as parents to "lead” the fun. Kiddo and the Warthog (and the Cousins CWD) are all just a little too little to be able to fully enjoy the beach on their own — they can’t really swim, have no interest in sitting still, can’t really just wander off by themselves — so they need help to direct their energy. When they’re all together, they can feed off each others’ momentum; when it’s just two kids and two parents, the play is more parent-led and it puts an additional strain on everyone.

Intuitively, this makes sense. Looking back on my own childhood, many of my fondest memories were times we were playing with “just the kids.” The play is natural, it doesn’t feel forced. Everyone — most of the time⁶ — is having fun. But, I think there’s a broader trend there, too: the company you keep has an outsized effect on the enjoyment you can get out of any situation. When you have a balanced dynamic — with no single person dominating the flow of activity — it allows everyone to have a better time. Having some structure is helpful, of course — you need parameters in which to play — but the environment should feel fluid enough where you can call audibles, adapt to the mood, play off the vibes. It’s a more enjoyable experience for everyone, especially compared to “forced fun!”

In many ways, this attitude applies equally well in the kitchen. You should go into preparing any meal with an idea of what you want to accomplish, but be equally open to making changes on the fly as the situation warrants. You might have — like we did last night — the notion on Mexican salad bowls for dinner. But, when you go into the pantry, realize you have coconut milk and ginger, might remember that Kiddo loved coconut rice last time you made it, and might decide to shift gears to teriyaki rice bowls instead. You might, instead of defrosting ground beef for a taco bowl, decide to douse a frozen shoulder steak with some soy sauce, sesame oil, sriracha, garlic, mirin, fish sauce and rice vinegar, then throw it in the sous vide to simultaneously defrost and cook — since you didn’t think of any of this until about an hour before dinner — finishing it under the broiler. You might, rather than sauteeing peppers and onions — in this heat! — decide to roast some broccoli, might decide to shake some peanuts and cashews into the still hot pan you cooked the steak in. And then, before you know it, rather than a taco salad, you have a rice bowl — which you can finish with some finally chopped garlic scape from the garden and a drizzle of Bachan’s sauce.

You might even get so into the flow of things you forget to take any pictures, forcing yourself to adapt the typical format of your newsletter when you go to write it later that night⁷.

As long as you’re having fun, none of this matters.

So with that, I’ll leave you to your weekends. It’s the official start of summer, so make sure you’re taking advantage of it⁸. We’ve got fewer and fewer hours of sunlight from here on out — you need to make the most of them. Up here in New England we’re getting a break in the action from the scorching heat and shifting toward rain. Probably no beach visits on the horizon for us, but a little birdie told me

Sam Sager

and his brood might make the trek our way to take a look at some goats. Maybe we’ll join in.

Even if there are no goats on your horizon, I hope you can spend this weekend with great company, bringing childlike wonder, fluidity and fun to each day. Because, really, waning daylight aside, life is too short to live it any other way⁹.

We’ll see you here next week.

1. The sand was about one-hundred-and-fifty-degrees, in what I believe is called the additive property of addition.

2. This Calvin and Hobbes strip, from July 23, 1989, sums the day up perfectly:

3. As we sat in the restaurant waiting for our food, the TV screen looped with documentary-style underwater footage of reef life: tropical fish and moray eels, sea turtles and spiny lobster. The Warthog, who was situated directly facing the screen, was fascinated — yelling “fish! fish!” every time the scene changed

The following morning, I took him to the doctor for a check-up. As part of his intake, the nurse asked about his screen time. I didn’t think that his few minutes a month of second-hand screen time, like we experienced at the restaurant counted, so, I answered “none.” The nurse looked at me a little strangely at that response. After mentioning this to the doctor, she told me that most toddlers she sees get an hour or two a day — so the Warthog was a bit of an outlier.

4. This does ignore the fact that there were also four adults, allowing for deeper coverage over the kiddos. That being said, Uncle Steady and I did spend the first two hours of the day spearfishing — it being Father’s Day and all — so Mrs. and Auntie CWD were on coverage alone.

And for those wondering, our dive for anything was unsuccessful. We did see a school of stripers — which are illegal to spear in Massachusetts waters — and Uncle Steady swore he saw the fastest tautog this side of Puerto Rico Trench. We obviously didn’t get either of those. I managed to pick up the largest lobster I’ve ever seen — which required two hands and was able to get real nice vice grip on my hand — but not only was it well over the legal size, it was also a female with eggs: another no-go for lobstering.

Overall, the most I got out of the day was the inspiration to buy a saltwater flyfishing set up from Orvis — giving me another option for when I don’t want to bring fish out of the water — and the hope that Steady and my next strike mission is more productive.

5. The Warthog and Baby Cousin CWD also are great playmates, but the latter is still a touch too small to be a true partner in crime for the Warthog. Give it a few months!

6. It’s all fun and games until someone stabs someone with a fork!

7. Mrs. CWD, by the way, is directly responsible for the inspiration behind this one — without her, I’d still be sitting at my computer trying to figure out about what to write!

8. PS — for those who are observing Pirate Summer, I did make a little play list for you to enjoy.

9. PS — a very special congratulations to Dr. and Mrs. Roommate CWD, MD, who welcomed their new little ranch hand into the world in the wee hours of the morning. Their life is about to get very fluid and very fun!