A Day at the Beach

I grew up a few miles from the beach. My parents loved the ocean and I learned how to swim, to build sand castles, to quickly eat a frozen fudgy wudgy bar before it melted there. My mother would pack sandwiches and drinks and we would spend the entire day playing in the surf and sand. These were the days before sunscreen and nobody worried about being in the sun too long.

Occasionally my grandparents, who lived in New York City, would join us. I don’t have many memories of my grandfather as he died when I was four, but I remember seeing some photographs of them at the beach with us. My grandfather dressed in his street clothes - pants, shirt, socks and shoes, and my grandmother in her house dress, stockings and shoes and a gigantic sun hat. My parents would bring beach chairs for them and they would sit under a huge umbrella and enjoy the open air reprieve from the city, but never bathe in the sun.

Once we were teenagers we went to the beach every day, either hitching a ride or, once old enough to drive, strapping our surfboards to the top of the car. Our closest beach had 5 parking fields, each which developed their own following. Field 5 was generally for families, Field 1 for fishermen, while Field 2 was for teenagers. We would congregate there every day to surf and play beach volleyball but most importantly to work on our tans. From 9 am to 4 pm we would lay out on our towels, slathered in baby oil, and soak up the rays. Back in those days we only had transistor radios and everyone listened to the same station and the sound covered the entire beach. Every half an hour the DJ would say “roll your body” and the everyone on the beach would turn over. It would be fair to say that the main activity of my misspent youth was sun worshipping.

Over the years I have given into bringing a beach chair so I could comfortably read. I still used a towel to lay on so I could evenly tan both my front and back. Then, when the girls were babies, knowing more about the dangers of sun exposure, we bought a respectable beach umbrella to shade them from the heat of the mid-day sun and slathered them with sunscreen. I still laid out with abandon and found the feeling of the sun on my skin to be one of the most pleasurable feelings in the world.

We just returned from a beach vacation. My daughters are in their twenties and I am in my sixties. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I can no longer tolerate too much sun like I used to. What changed? My daughters stretched out in their skimpy bikinis and I wore a one piece bathing suit with a pair of water shorts and a large brimmed sun hat I just bought for my upcoming trip to Greece. I lugged a beach chair and umbrella through the sand. But it was windy and we couldn’t keep the large beach umbrella firmly in the sand. Having just read that a woman had been impaled with a blown away umbrella made me take this very seriously. I went up to the beach shop and bought one of those small cheesy personal umbrellas that latch onto your chair. I could direct it to keep the sun off the majority of my body but wound up draping a towel over my burning knees and legs.

My daughters couldn’t hide their amusement. Or was that embarrassment? I have now officially become my grandmother.

Going Home

Martha and I have been working our butts off at the cabin. We hired a contractor to rip out a concrete floor in a back room that had heaved and was allowing water to seep up through the floor. They replaced the floor but left us with only studs for the back wall. We put in new windows, installed beadboard, laid carpet and sided the outside. My hands and shoulders were stiff for days.

Then we ripped apart the last third of the deck, shored up the foundation, unscrewing all the boards, flipping them, screwing them back down and re-staining them. Brutal on the back and knees.

But the most difficult project was replacing a back door that was thoroughly rotted. The door sat in a frame that had settled significantly and was now a trapezoid shape and never closed completely and was barely held shut for years by a hook and eye. Plus the door was about 7 inches shorter than a standard door. Removing the old door I found lots of rotted wood that needed to be replaced. Then I framed out a rectangle for the door frame. We had to cut 7 inches off the bottom of a fiberglass door to fit but we did it a little at a time to make sure we didn’t cut too much. After each cut we carried the heavy door, jockeying it into this narrow space, then back to make adjustments including having to router and re-position the bottom hinge.  My shoulders and wrists are screaming in protest.

There is nothing on my body that does not hurt. Nothing. As much as I enjoy doing this kind of physical work, and my psyche absolutely needs it, my body needs so much more time to recover from each day of labor.

And to that end I am leaving for a relaxing family vacation where I will enjoy the healing power of warm sand, beach walks at sunrise, salty air, the calming ebb and flow of the ocean and seafood meals while watching sunsets.


Having grown up by the ocean, for me it is like going home.

Full of Grace

Just when I think things couldn’t get much worse for this country, they do. Again and again.

I am fortunate to live in a state where my representatives all vote the way I would so I don’t have to put much energy into political lobbying. I am fortunate enough to have some modest funds to donate to sites and organizations that help those who are truly being hurt by this administration’s inhumane policies and I try to help those in need my local world. But these days it all feels woefully insignificant against this overwhelming tide of hate and constant propagation of fear.

Still believe in the power of kindness and joy as an anecdote to the ugly and so here are some of the joy filled things that made me smile and grateful this week.

• Despite the torturous heat wave we are experiencing, my veggie garden is thriving. Our town is on water restrictions but we have a private well so I can water, with soaker hoses, to give the plants some relief.

The critters have not eaten the beans like last year

Squash and Zucchini

Tomatoes all grown from seed

• Martha and I spent two days at the cabin removing the last set of deck boards, shoring up its foundation and putting it all back together. It was hard, hot work but the main part of the deck is now complete and should last another 20 years. Which is more than I can say about my back after this project. Still I am very grateful to be able to do such physical work at my age. I know that not everyone is so blessed.

• Starting today I will have two daughters, two of their high school friends, two boyfriends, two bonus daughters, two dogs, and two cats at the lake for the week. Although it is often too much chaos for me, I do love that they all want to come home.

• And the biggest joy of the week, Peachie got engaged to a man we like very much and makes her very happy. The next year of wedding planning we will be dealing with bridezilla but we are oh so grateful that she has found someone to share her life with. 

Wishing and working for freedom for everyone this holiday week.