summer thoughts

First things first...
Countdown to FRFF: 15 days

Ahhh...summer. The heat, the humidity, the stickiness, the OCEAN. I'm back from my week at the beach and I have a sprinkling of freckles across my nose and cheekbones to prove it. My freckles go into hibernation for the winter, but a few hours in the sun on a June afternoon makes them POP. 3 people have commented on them today, as if they are a new phenomenon. I'm 100% Irish, of course I freckle!

Anyway, I just spent a week here in this house. My cousin Mark graduated from high school and got to choose the family vacation destination and the Outer Banks was his pick. The house was full of my mother's cousins and mine. We played ENDLESS rounds of SlapJack, a few games of Cranium, ate a LOT of seafood (steamed crabs, crabcakes, swordfish, grouper), set off fireworks on the beach, took long walks, hung out in the hot tub, lounged on the beach and played in the ocean. The water was pretty cold and pretty rough (in knee-deep water, Mark's 180 lb. frame was getting knocked on it's ass), but still a delight. There were dolphins jumping on a daily basis. We taught my 10-year old cousin Maya (a mere 53 lbs with not an ounce of fat on her Chinese body) how to boogie board and she LOVED it. She became a total ocean lover in my company. She didn't even mind getting slammed by a few waves...it's not a real day at the ocean til you come up bloody anyway! We made a trip to a Sonic (our first experience with this particular brand of fast-food--we loved it!) and to a Brew-Thru because you can't just drive past the 8 we saw without trying one!

For as long as I can remember, summer has meant the ocean. I have a mother who LOVES the beach. Many summer days and summer weekends were spent at Jones Beach on Long Island with my parents' best friends and their 4 girls. We went to Spring Lake on the Jersey Shore from time to time to spice things up a little bit. Our vacations were to the Outer Banks and later Cape Cod. We spent hours every day on the beach, biked endless miles, wandered the towns of Duck and Chatham, able to return to our favorite shops summer after summer. Sure, there were many days spent at the Ramsey Pool, since it was 5 minutes from home and by the time I was 10, I could ride my bike and/or walk there with my sister...plus, swim-team practice was there at 8 AM every morning all summer long. I learned how to swim in that pool, how to dive in the diving well and played endless hours of games with my best friends there as well. But the ocean meant summer...the smell of sunscreen and saltwater, cokes and cold-cut sandwiches on the beach, playing "chicken" in the waves (you turn your back, link arms and hope for the best--we used to get SLAMMED).

My grandmother (dad's mom) and uncle (dad's brother) also joined us on every summer vacation (to OBX/the Cape) for about 15 years. The huge bonus to this meant that Erin and I could ride with them, and not deal with Ryan during the 5-10 hours of car time involved in driving to said destinations. My grandmother was laid-back and easy-going, loved going to the beach when we were younger, and when she got older, she'd hang in the AC'ed house, watch reruns of Hunter and Golden Girls and Matlock, then ask for updates on the water conditions and beach activities of the day.

When I look ahead 10/15 years or so, I see myself taking my own children for vacations to the same beaches, wandering the same towns, biking the same trails. Vacations weren't about expensive meals (the benefit of renting a house was making our own meals) or extravagant hotels or exotic locations. Vacation was a time to hang out as a family, spent time laughing and playing together, catch the occasional Cape League baseball game and come home relaxed and slightly pink. I have nothing but the happiest of memories about family vacations. In fact, family vacations still exist...occasionally we do something more "unusual" like a tour of the CA coast (which still involved 5 days at the beach) or visiting family in Ireland, but most years, like last summer, it's still a house on the Cape with whatever family members feel like coming.

Now, getting back to the first lines of this entry, summer has another meaning. The 3-4 days that I spend in Hillsdale every summer since 2003 are a summer hilight. Good friends, good food, good music, good times...and this year, it means a mini-BigYellow reunion, so that's even better! I've been introduced to wonderful new music at FR (including the Nields, EFO, Girlyman, Tracy Grammer, DaVinci's Notebook, disappear fear) and I come back every year feeling relaxed, peaceful and giddy for weeks! See lots of y'all there!