393. Why It Tickles

I took the photo above of my own feet at Crescent Beach in Maine last summer. On this particular day, my friend (Hi, MR!) was visiting our place. She and several members of her family had recently completed hiking the Connecticut portion (52 miles!) of the Appalachian Trail.

She told me the following story about her young niece, who went along on the trip. One day, when the eight-year-old had, as they say, woken up on the wrong side of her sleeping pad, she was complaining about everything. Of particular note, as they walked through tall grass, she whined to her family that she didn't like the way the vegetation scratched her shins. The path was itchy and uncomfortable. She asked her family to make it stop.

On a later day, when she'd had a good night's sleep, eaten well, and was, as they say, looking through rose-colored camping gear, she sang to her family about how the tall grass tickled her legs. She found the experience delightful.

So, as I stood in the waves letting the seaweed wrap around my feet, I decided to have the little girl's second day:

• Seaweed does good things for the ocean's ecosystem.
• It makes great sushi wrappers.
• It's cool-looking, with long stringy parts and big bunches like pom-poms.
• It tickles my feet.

So the question is, obviously, since we can't always control exactly what happens to us, how can we convince ourselves, in the moment, even when we haven't yet eaten or slept enough, even when the mosquitoes are closing in on us for their dinner, even when we have fifty pages left to read and three essays and lab reports to write or grade, even when everything seems to be forcing us to trek uphill, in the ice, through barbed wire, on bare feet, that whatever is going on tickles? That it's a benefit not a nuisance? Please share any suggestions in the comments.