Our Beach

My older son found a box full of old photographs that he took when he was a kid. (He'll be 28 in a little over a month.) He's been scanning them into his computer and emailing them to us. One of the pictures he found was one I've been thinking about since I took my Cape Cod vacation last fall. My parents, my kids, their dad and I rented a house in Harwich Port for 5 summers, 1988-1992. During April school vacation in 1993, we went down to visit the Cape - eat at Seafood Sam's, drive by the Chatham Lighthouse, and walk on the beach. We knew we wouldn't be coming back the following summer. I was feeling very sad about that, and my mood was somber. I'm not sure who wrote this in the beach, but:

It's our initials, followed by "This is OUR BEACH." I thought that maybe somehow by laying claim to it, we'd get some good karma and magically convince the Universe to arrange for us to stay there again. But the Universe wasn't paying any attention, and our days of renting on the Cape while the kids were small were over.

Almost every summer, we manage to make a day trip (I go, accompanied by one, two or three kids, whoever else is available). We eat at Seafood Sam's, visit the Chatham lighthouse, and drive around our old neighborhood. Sometimes we walk on the beach. But we go back to our homes near Boston at the end of the day.

Last fall, I finally managed an overnight visit to the Cape when I spent four wonderful days right down the beach from "Our Beach". I talked about it here. I have pictures of the vacation on all of my computers as wallpaper, and they warm my heart as I think of the place where I feel most myself.

Since then, I realized something about "Our Beach." Even though we don't stay there every year, it's still "our beach", and it always will be. It's in our hearts, a part of our lives. We belong there, and the beach knows it. It recognizes us as its own. Odd as that sounds, I feel it very strongly. When I walk there, I'm whole. The little girl who ran ahead of her mother and grandparents, the young mother who delighted in watching the hermit crabs in the tidal pools with her small children, the older mother who brought her growing kids to this place even after they couldn't rent there any more - they all walk with me. That's why I keep going back. All the best pieces of myself can be found there.