Welcome to the Gulf of Whatever

No, you haven't completely lost your mind. You aren't stuck in a time loop. There is no glitch in the matrix. That really is the 20th Alvin's Island beachwear shop that you have passed in the last 15 minutes while cruising down Highway 98 in Walton County, Florida.

Once you finally pass all of the Publix shopping centers, the familiar chain restaurants heroically poised amidst the vast expanse of an endless sea of asphalt, the bedraggled strip malls with the same amount of parking spots as the nearby Destin-Fort Walton Beach airport, the myriad of self-storage facilities, the construction equipment, and the multi-million dollar beachfront VRBO's located only a moderately-difficult bike ride away from a trailer park are some of the nicest beaches anywhere in the country, or perhaps even the world.

Of course I am talking about our big, beautiful gulf, and all you have to do is read the tank tops worn by every single one of your fellow beachgoers to know that this gulf has now proudly been rebranded as the Gulf of America, and it's even bigger, better, and so much more gulfy than ever before. While this is all very dumb, I don't actually care what we call the gulf. Sure, renaming it gives the nation's Alpha Male Militia something else to yell "hell yea!" about, and I'm sure a non-insignificant portion of Florida's economy is now "Gulf of America" merchandise, but it really is one of the more benign things to happen over the last 8 months. I've gotten so used to the perpetual secondhand embarrassment that this one in particular doesn't bother me anymore.

It doesn't matter where you go around here. There will be a sunburnt guy with a goatee sitting next to a bluetooth speaker blaring unfamiliar-to-me country-rap hybrids that I can only assume are being performed by someone named Jelly Roll, or Big Dump, or something like that. It doesn't really matter who is singing the songs since they pretty much sound alike anyways, and they are all somehow borderline tolerable from a distance. Think of it like this: I hate cigarettes, and up close they smell disgusting to me, but when I get a subtle whiff of one from afar, as if an angel gently blew the carcinogenic cloud in my direction, I almost kind of like it. This upsetting brand of "coworker music" pretty much works the same way. There is something about this stupid type of song that ties this entire gulf ecosystem together. It's as if they themselves are what power the panhandle's frozen daiquiri machines. These songs are what call the prospective deep fried shrimp into the fisherman's boat, keeping the regions economic wheels turning.

I shouldn't dunk on such a beautiful part of the country that so many people love and call home, and you could certainly poke fun at my beloved home city of Atlanta, too. One of our major public transit initiatives was pushed back because we forgot we already had trolley tracks in place and a forgotten underground parking deck was in the way anyways. We recently gave a bunch of money that could have been used for housing, education, healthcare, bike lanes, finishing the stupid Beltline, or literally anything else to the police to build an urban warfare training center. We have like 37 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic and chicken wing bones all over the ground. If we're really being fair here, I think much of this country could be described by my second paragraph anyways.

All in all, we had a great time, as expected. This was our first time on this part of the Florida panhandle in a while, and I don't think we quite appreciated how calm and how much less crowded things are over on Jekyll Island where we've been going, especially in late August once school has started back for most kids. The beach here doesn't look crowded in the photos, mostly because we are morning people and got out there pretty early, but we were also right next to a "pRiVaTe BeAcH," which is a hilarious idea to me, which meant that the plebs like us weren't allowed to sit in the sand or touch the water on the other side of the sign pictured below. Of course private property is little more than a state of mind, but we played by the rules for the most part anyways. At one point someone emerged from one of the beachfront mansions that will likely be underwater within the next decade or so and placed another sign even closer to us just to be sure that we were aware that they were the proud owners of that little stretch of sand and water. Happy for them!

Every sane person loves the idea of the beach and relaxing next to it, but honestly, I feel that "The Beach" simply isn't our vibe. I can't really explain it. Or maybe I can, but I shouldn't. However, we still go every year as if there is some unspoken obligation to do so, and I don't quite regret it either. It's hard to ignore how beautiful it all is, even if everything living below the surface is actively trying to kill you. My solution to this problem, and one that I have grown more confident in as I have gotten older, is to simply stay out of the water altogether. There really isn't anything for me in the water anyways, so I'll stay over here, and yall (sea creatures of doom) stay over there.

I mentioned when launching this site that this is where I hope to be primarily sharing photo work going forward, and I suppose it's official now that I have finally ditched Instagram. I guess I have to be careful what I say so I don't get fired or arrested or something, but the reason for removing Instagram from my daily life was this: everything is so incredibly stupid now and I can't take it. I'm sure you have also noticed this, but you're a better person than me and are able to endure it.

I feel like I have said something similar in every single one of my recent posts, but the world has been heavy lately, and I really hope that you have been taking care of yourself as best as you can. Removing Instagram and all of the stupid headlines, and the ensuing stupid takes on said headlines, is one step I have taken to better care for myself. As evidenced by these photos of the Emerald Coast, there is still plenty of beauty in the world, and now more than ever we need to cling to that. I am trying to be better about finding something every day that I can be thankful for, and for me this shouldn't be difficult. Of course I am always thankful for my beautiful family, but I am also trying to look beyond that. Saying "I am thankful for my kids," while true, feels as if I am not taking this task seriously. The fact that I have the means to pay my predatory power bill, or even afford health insurance, are things that I am thankful for. The cooler morning air as fall approaches. The fact that there is an El Tesoro in my neighborhood now. The fact that I have a brand new deck on the back of my house (even though I complained a lot about having to actually build it.) The fact that I am physically capable of running long distances, and that I actually enjoy it. The fact that I haven't had a drop of alcohol in nearly five years. These are all great things to me.

It may not seem like it from the way I started this piece, but I really am thankful for the time I was able to spend with my family on the Gulf of Whatever this summer. If I can offer any sort of encouragement to the twenty of you who might read this, it would be to log off the internet, turn off the news for a bit, and go outside. Make a list of things you are thankful for. Talk to people in real life, and build real connections. Get involved in your community. Get to know the guy with the goatee listening to "coworker music" by the pool.

Here are a few more photos. Thank for reading!