Malta observed: Quiet days at the beach

Spacing Associate Editor Shawn Micallef is in his ancestral homeland of Malta and was guest blogging on the Wired Malta blog this past weekend and has been cross posting here on Spacing Toronto. This is the final post in this series.

MALTA: There are beach people and there aren’t. For some, the phrase “A day at the beach” could be a long season in hell but for those who can get into it the beach is the most magical of public spaces. It’s the closest I ever want to get to camping and it’s the only time I have bare feet for extended periods of time. Beaches bend time and the rules, and an hour might seem like 3 or maybe just 15 minutes. The sun slides across the sky and “should I go in the water now or later” becomes a monumental decision. Malta, being an island, has a special relationship with the beach — it’s a part of daily life, much like how city dwellers automatically make a stroll in the park part of their day. On Sunday’s the Maltese will stay late into the evening and eat dinner on the beach — the whole family will be there, even the Nana’s wearing their polka-dotted dresses. The Maltese are fairly relaxed about the beach, and people who don’t have bikini bodies wear them and nobody seems to mind and that’s how it should be.

Malta has both sandy and rocky beaches. Both are good, but sometimes the rocks are more interesting, and there is more sea life below and no sand to get in between your toes.

At the beach you make a mini-camp and take over a tiny plot of space and temporarily make it your own. Some build elaborate tent-like structures with multiple umbrellas. I’m bad at planning so keep it simple with just a mat, towel, umbrella and maybe a beer or two — though most of the beaches in Malta have a kiosk nearby where you can buy beer and much more. Since this is not camping, it’s ok to have these amenities near by. The beach is where civilization and the wilderness meet up and touch. Toronto has some good beaches and some entrepreneurs have set up kiosks, but we are a little more hung up on things like alcohol in public, so such things are kept on the down low and maybe that’s also as it should be. Here at Ghajn Tuffieha beach my little camp was pushed up against the hill as those southern winds are making big waves that make the beach rather narrow.

I brought some Toronto with me in the form of Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero. It’s kind of wet and salty now and maybe a bit slimy with sun tan lotion (probably nobody wants to borrow this copy when I return). The other day at this same spot a woman sat down next to me on her towel and opened up Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride. It was like a Toronto reading room here in Malta. I almost said that I used to live around the corner from here, and sometimes she’d be in her front garden as we walked by, but that seemed like a breach, and maybe creepy, so we read in silence.

I may be too trustworthy, but I always feel safe leaving whatever I have with me (iPod, phone, keys, salty book) on the beach when I go into the water. It might simply be the spell of the place that suspends my usual (mild) suspicion of the safety of objects in public spaces, but I’ve never had a problem. I forgot my contact lenses in Toronto so once out in the water my little camp becomes a blur. What is the Robber Bride doing standing up? It’s hard to tell. Is she leaving or stealing my stuff? I can’t tell and continue to float in the Mediterranean roil. When I return to shore my stuff is still there but she’s all gone. Here the waves are bigger, the water warmer, the beach a little more dramatic, and the bathing suits generally smaller, but the experience of going to the beach in Malta is not too far removed from some of Toronto’s good freshwater beaches. In Toronto we seem to collectively think things are better elsewhere. Maybe they are, but not by too much.

One thing Maltese folks (at least the ones I meet) and visitors seem to complain about constantly is the litter problem on the island. Depending on the wind it will float in and collect along the shore and rocks. Such a small island with so little precious space is often treated so badly. It’s hard to tell in the picture above but some Maltese teenagers were sitting on the rocks throwing bags, water bottles and beer cans into the sea. They hit some people snorkeling who of course objected audibly. They were told by the teens to fornicate with their mothers. In the 18 years (with some big breaks in between) I’ve been coming to Malta, the litter problem has endured. It is difficult to explain why this happens here on Malta, it simply doesn’t make sense.

Back in Paceville, the beach that nurses those Eurobeat hangovers by day becomes a giant party at night, with big groups of kids sitting around drinking, sometimes wading out into the water. Maybe not a good mix, but in Malta the beach is never far from ones thoughts.