The water in the Gulf of Mexico this time of year is still a little chilly, but with the sun blazing in a cloudless sky and the challenge of catching a frisbee thrown rather haphazardly to distract from the water temperature, it’s really quite nice.

I can’t complain about the sharp little pieces of broken shells in the soft sand or the fact that you can’t use the lawn chairs or grass huts on the beach unless you’re able to honestly identify your room number at the $400 a night Marriott, either.

My view from the condo my friend and I stayed in over spring break in Marco Island, Fla., included a number of palm trees, pelicans gliding by and a pier jutting out into an inlet of sea water sprinkled with sail boats.

The weather stayed around 85 degrees all week, and we never saw a cloud. I woke up to a warm breeze on my face every day and grilled out watching brilliant sunsets.

Down the street from where we stayed was the most charming little establishment I’ve ever been to called Snook Inn. The place captured my heart.

Under the thatched roof of the open air restaurant, employees flitted around happily in brightly colored fish shirts. The aroma of sea food hung lightly in the air, and the music of the live guitarist performing Jimmy Buffet songs blended with the sound of water lapping on the shore. Everything was smiles and tans. It was perfect.

No one was tense or stressed out. No one cared what time it was. No one was a stranger. My friend and I found each other determining that yes, we could spend the rest of our lives here working at the Snook.

Obviously, since you’re sitting here reading this column, I have indeed returned to Charleston, contrary to my original plans of never coming back. Life just doesn’t work that way. Maybe for Larry, the 38-year-old cabana-boy, it does, but for me and you, somehow it doesn’t.

For us, Marco Island is the dream for a week, and the reality is cold, rainy weather, tests and papers, scraping up enough money for the electric bill and praying Mom’s knee surgery goes fine.

My first conclusion when considering this maxim is, “That’s not fair!” – like a little kid who just realized that sissy gets a sucker from Grandma, too, even though she was naughty.

Many of us like to adopt the cynical view of life when confronted with its harshness, especially when we are given a glimpse of the paradise it could be. It’s easier to be grumpy and pessimistic.

I’ll tell you what: when I look at the barren, leafless trees against the gray sky and think of how far away those lazy, swaying palm trees are, it’s hard to not feel a grating resentment towards Illinois. And that resentment spreads to other stresses in my life.

However, I was reading a book this week called “With New Eyes” by Margaret Becker, that offered some wisdom about the quandary I was facing. The author aims to take a different perspective on the curve balls life tosses at us.

She travels alone to a beach house on the East Coast to try to find some peace and is captivated by the beauty she encounters there. She wants to capture it but knows she can’t.

She refers to a Bible story where God’s people, the Israelites, lost and hungry in the desert, cry out to God for food. He sends them a bread from heaven called manna – just enough for the day – and says not to try to keep it more than that day. He will provide again the next day.

They disobey, and the manna they stash becomes infested with maggots.

Becker writes about her beach house experience: “These moments, although staggering in their beauty and centricity, cannot be hoarded. They are for the day, for the moment, for this moment of my life. Like manna, if held a day too long, they lose their redemptive character, their ability to nourish and heal.”

She decides to press the memories in her soul to keep hope alive within her, to keep from becoming resigned to bitterness.

So I guess that’s what we can do. We can remember the Snook – the music, the smells, the laughter, the soft breeze – when life gets really dreary, not looking back nostalgically, wishing for the past so that the memory gets infested, but living with hope for sunny days in the future.