Karen Theis
A Gift from the Sea
The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach— waiting for a gift from the sea.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The weather was freezing outside, but it was warm and toasty by the Douglas fir Christmas tree. Our cats were busy batting the ribbons and wrapping scattered around the room as my older son handed me his Christmas gift for the family. The room got even cozier and noticeably warmer as I read his card.
Whenever I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, I usually responded as many mothers do: “I don’t need anything. . . . Save your money. . . . I just want my family to be healthy and happy.” My son handed me his present, and all eyes turned to watch me open the handmade gift card. With anticipation, I read his note offering to treat the family to a weekend at the beach at Cape May.
Memories of summers taking the boys to the beach flooded back. Cape May, a beautiful Victorian beach town at the southern tip of New Jersey, was always an ideal spot to get away and spend time together relaxing on the pristine white sand that framed the Atlantic Ocean. With card in hand, I couldn’t wait for summer, when we could once again pile in the car and head to the beach.
As the weekend approached, I prepared by digging out an old Fred Penner tape we used to play to make the car ride go more quickly. I packed Frisbees and tennis balls and long-forgotten sand toys. With the car ready to go, my son eased himself into the driver’s seat . . . a bonus for my husband, who jumped at the rare opportunity to sit back and play DJ with the radio.
The hours in the car flew by as we caught up on all the happenings in our busy lives. Arriving in the quaint town, we quickly found our favorite hotel, checked in, and hit the beach. After a refreshing dip in the ocean, we basked in the sun and soaked in our surroundings. Sitting on our blankets, my younger son noticed a rare occurrence happening right near the gentle surf where we had just been swimming. A school of dolphins had emerged and were frolicking just beyond the whitecaps. As they gracefully rose from the water and engaged in their beautiful dance before our eyes, I was sure they had come by just to celebrate our visit.
That afternoon, playing games of Trouble and Uno and reading on the beachfront balcony with its peaceful view, the years continued to slip away. As evening approached, we changed out of our swimsuits and made our way to a favorite seafood restaurant. With the sun setting over the water, we placed our orders from the extensive menu of fresh fish offerings and took our time savoring the meal. Afterward we shared ice cream cones that dripped on our clothes as we valiantly tried to keep up with the large melting scoops of cold vanilla ice cream. The evening would not have been complete without an after-dinner trip to the arcade. The whole family played multiple games of Skeeball, carefully stockpiling tickets so we could redeem them for the fabulous prizes such as vampire teeth and snake tattoos.
On Sunday, walking one last time on the boardwalk and dipping our toes in the sand, we took a final look at the calm, clear water. Relaxed and rejuvenated, we packed up our belongings and loaded the car for the trip home. We may have been leaving the beach, but I knew I would keep that special Christmas gift in my heart forever. Time with the family . . . truly the gift that keeps on giving.
Pamela Hackett Hobson
Good-bye to the Ocean
The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.
Frank Lloyd Wright
How she loved the ocean!
I can remember my mother striding down the beach with a certain spring in her step, ready to meet the mighty Atlantic head-on.
I can remember how she’d pause briefly at the lifeguard stand to ask the temperature of the water, charming those young men on duty with her wonderful smile.
And no matter what they said—no matter how bone-chilling the pronouncement—my mom would venture forth. It was as if she had an urgent commitment to meet, a manifest destiny with the sea. There was no stopping her. My mother is ninety-six now. “A big number,” she says often, with just a hint of awe in her voice.
She no longer frolics in the sea.
Until about two years ago, Mom would somehow manage to have her rendezvous with the Atlantic Ocean. A friend would invite her to the shore, and she’d find a way to get there. Or she’d join up with a bus trip from her apartment building. Or one of her daughters or granddaughters would help her to the water’s edge.
But after a miserable encounter with a broken hip, Mom has sadly said good-bye to her annual reunions with the surf. For the first time in her ninety-six years, she is timid, even fearful. The waves that once delighted her now look intimidating. The ocean is too full of surprises—dips and sudden undertows, crashing breakers that could toss a tiny lady about like so much seaweed.
“No more ocean,” Mom said earlier this year. “Not for me.”
She said it so resignedly that it made my heart lurch. No drama. No semblance of self-pity.
Old age has made my mother accepting in ways that only the very elderly can understand. She knows that life is tricky. She understands that everything can change in a single moment. And she endures without complaint the indignities of a body that betrays her more often now.
At ninety-six, Mom knows better than most to seize the day, the hour, the moment. She squeezes every bit of juice out of life, clinging more than ever to the precious times.
Nobody—not a single guest—has enjoyed our recent family parties more than Mom. Nobody enjoys her seven great-grandchildren more than this doting, delighted lady who knows each child’s exact birth date and disposition.
She had waited, she reminds us, for this fantastic dessert of life. With age comes privilege. But I know that the days are sometimes so long for Mom. I know that the nights are longer.
There are times when her high-rise apartment in Philadelphia must feel like a prison despite its sunny yellow walls lined with family photographs and, lately, the drawings of her great-grandchildren displayed as proudly as Picassos.
On good days, Mom sees friends. On her best days, she visits the fitness center in her apartment building and walks the treadmill. Yes, at ninety-six.
Still, as we greet the golden days of summer, I ache for Mom. I know how much she’d love to be jumping waves in her beloved ocean, bobbing in the surf like a child at play.
But there will be no more “dips” in the Atlantic. No more wave jumping for a lady of ninety-six.
Just lovely memories of the way it once was—down by the sea.
Sally Friedman
September Song
It’s an annual pilgrimage, a rite of every fall. And it’s one that I approach with mingled joy and dread.
The joy springs from my lifelong love affair with beaches and oceans. The dread comes from the inevitable parting, now that days are shorter and the sweaters have replaced the bathing suits in the bedroom drawer.
I was never good at endings.
So I travel on this pilgrimage to say good-bye to the beach alone. I snatch a few precious hours that seem harder and harder to claim in these days of constant connection with the world; spontaneity is elusive. Beaches and spontaneity should go together.
While I’d like to grab just a towel and dash off, age has brought a certain degree of prudence. These days, my September odyssey means toting along a beach chair, sunscreen, insect repellent, and a sensible lunch. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have been so prudent.
As I drive along familiar roads with my car windows open and Barry Manilow on the tape player, I think of all the poetry and prose I wish I’d composed about the savage beauty of an ocean and the spell that a beach at sunset can cast on the most impoverished soul.
Out of habit and deep affection, I choose Long Beach Island, New Jersey, for my annual trek. Proximity counts too, but somehow, driving for mo
re than sixty or seventy minutes to reach the ocean takes away some of the pleasure.
I always end up at the same beach, the one I’ve come to know best on this island. I couldn’t tell you why I love this particular stretch of sand and dunes, except that it’s familiar and fairly deserted.
The natives on Long Beach Island know this beach, too, and the few whom I’m apt to encounter on these autumnal trips tend to eye me warily. I am the usurper of their long-awaited peace and quiet after the summer invasion, the potential “foreigner” who may leave this special place less wonderful than I found it.
But I brace for the stares each year, and I remind myself that if I lived here year-round, I, too, would want the place to myself, come fall.
If history is prophecy, I will spend one hour of my last day at the beach this year staring at the ocean. I’ll spend another hour reading, one more snoozing, and the last hour walking.
I will speak to no one.
I will eat ravenously of the lunch I’ve packed, and wish I’d packed more.
And I will invariably find some shells to carry back home with me. They will be carefully chosen, as if my very destiny hinged on their shape and form. I’ll scour the beach like a pirate searching for booty because these will be, after all, tangible reminders of a place I love.
One shell from last year’s haul sits on my dresser still. It’s pink and fragile, curled around into itself, protected yet somehow vulnerable. Like the beach itself.
Yes, it’s a long, long way from September to May. And winter looms large.
But for one beach lover, a solitary farewell to the beach will somehow stand as a reminder that it will all be there next year, waiting for me.
And that thought surely makes the waiting more bearable.
Sally Friedman
“I really only get to read at the beach!”
Reprinted by permission of Stephanie Piro. © 2005 Stephanie Piro.
4
TRANQUILITY
The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.
James Allen
Sunset
The beach still maintains a certain fascination for me, since my days growing up in Washington, D.C. The family would head down to Atlantic City in the days before it became the gambling Mecca it is today. Walking the boardwalk as a child and sharing a common sense of connectedness with other beach lovers set the standard for my love of the sand and ocean.
Early on in my marriage, my husband and I bought a time-share in the preconstruction stage at North Myrtle Beach. This haven quickly became a favorite of ours. My husband and I would enjoy all the amenities of Myrtle Beach and then retreat back to the quiet peacefulness of North Myrtle Beach’s surf and sand. My birthday was still several months away when my husband asked, “Have you decided what you want to do for your birthday?” I became quiet as I thought about the impending day. Society has taught women not to celebrate each year of life, but to hide the increasing years behind a bland smile and denial. I was about to turn the big forty. With a measure of resolve I stated, “I haven’t really given it any thought.”
My husband gave me that all-knowing look of his, which was actually quite infuriating at times, and said, “How about the beach?”
I shrugged my shoulders thinking, Why not? I loved the beach, and so did the boys. I quickly agreed to his suggestion with one stipulation: At midnight the day my fortieth birthday rolled in, I wanted to be on the beach.
As the months turned into weeks, I had some well-meaning friends who could not help indulging in the standard over-the-hill jokes and the “Lordy, Lordy, Bernetta is Forty” signs. So much so that the last thing I wanted to do was to celebrate the day at the beach. I made excuses about why we should not go and assured my husband, Charles, that we would get down to the beach later in the summer. In truth, I enjoyed my beach time too much to start to associate it with a day that I was dreading. Throughout the sixteen years of our marriage, my husband has learned that the best way to handle a situation that I am trying to avoid is to meet it and me head on. Charles decided that if the trip was going to happen, he would have to pack and ignore my protest.
When the Friday before my birthday arrived, he announced confidently, “The boys are out of school, you have the day off, and we are spending the weekend at the beach.”
Before I could utter the protest that lodged in my throat, he added, “I invited your mother to come.” Not only was the traitor going to force me to walk into my forties hollering and screaming, but he had enlisted the help of my mother to do it. With a reserved shrug I got up and prepared to endure a weekend of false happiness for the sake of those whom I loved.
As we checked into our resort, I wandered over to the window and its view of the beach. As I stood watching the water lap against the sand, a calm that had eluded me over the past few months began to invade my body. I was so absorbed by the calming image that I did not at first hear Charles say, “Coming, hon?” Once inside our two-bedroom, oceanfront accommodations, I walked to the sliding glass door in the master bedroom and opened it so that I could hear the roar of the ocean. I had a spring in my step as I began to unpack. And then there was the singing, which I should never do unless alone in the shower. But my family did not seem to mind as I broke out into a version of Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday.”
After dinner at a local restaurant we walked down the beach, and for the first time that I can remember since being an adult, my sixty-five-year-old mother took her shoes off and walked down the beach, allowing the ocean water to lap around her feet and ankles. That moment alone was well worth the drive. Not only had relaxing at the beach managed to eliminate a lot of my self-induced stress, but my mother smiled and just enjoyed herself by feeling alive and healthy.
Charles and I walked along the beach holding hands as the boys played and walked ahead of us. As we walked, day began to turn to dusk. We stopped our trek to stand and look at the vastness of the ocean as the sun began to set beyond the horizon. My thoughts drifted to other people around the world, standing, looking out at the same vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. In that moment I felt a connectedness to the universe that can only be described as feeling like God was standing there reaching out to me and showing me the possibilities of grace and mercy born—getting another year older. For no apparent reason I started to cry, not tears of sorrow, but of joy. I had been blessed with forty years of life, and I found myself praying for forty more.
Charles and I walked the boys and Mom back to the resort, and at 11:30 PM we rode the elevator down to the ground floor. We stepped out onto the beach and started to walk in the direction of some lights further down the beach. As the time slowly ticked toward midnight, as if on cue, someone started to shoot off fireworks. Charles and I stood watching as the nighttime sky was infused with shades of blue, pink, red, and yellow. Softly in my ear at the stroke of midnight Charles whispered to me, “Happy birthday.” Smiling I said, “Yes, it will be.”
We continue to visit the beach several times throughout the year. But there has not been another time when we walked on the beach at midnight to celebrate my birthday. I am saving that for the decade milestones to come.
Bernetta Thorne-Williams
Confessions of a Jersey Girl
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
My love affair with the Jersey Shore has spanned over half a century—ever since my mother brought me here. One look and that is all it took to create a lifetime passion. I have no control over my feelings. It is as if I am possessed by the ocean, the beaches, the boardwalk, the feeling of oneness that comes over me. We are soul mates.
It began when I was a youngster, when we rented a room in a boardinghouse in New Jersey for whatever days or weeks we could afford. We lived in a small apartment in the winter, and there was little money for luxuries. But the shore was another matter. F
or my mother, it became a necessity. She could endure anything life tossed her way in the winter as long as there was the Jersey Shore to anticipate in the summer. When my father had a problem with his nerves because he lost his job, the doctor told him, “Go to the beach. Swim in the ocean. It will cure you.” And it did.
Summertime meant living by the ocean, in whatever way we could, even if it was one room for four people. It did not matter. We slept on beds, cots, and floors—just to hear the sound of the waves or feel the ocean as it swept over us. Nothing could match the magic of a few weeks at the shore.