Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover's Soul Read online

  But by far the best dessert was the rich bay sunset that the beach offered us at night. At dusk the blanket became our vantage point for the dazzling gold, orange, and purple light show that illuminated the entire sky and subtly changed hues each second of the sun’s deliberate descent. It was as if the sky dressed itself in royal robes to bear witness to the ritual leave-taking of its majestic ruler, and those of us who were privileged to watch became silent in awe and wonder.

  Somewhere during the seventies, we needed my Volkswagen Bug and the big old Oldsmobile known as the Queen Elizabeth to get bikes, the Bonito, guitars, and two teenage girls from New York to Cape Cod. But we didn’t miss a summer. Encyclopedia Brown and Walter were still there, only now they talked of college plans, Genesis, and Led Zeppelin. One year Walter invited Michele to his senior prom, and she accepted. The Vietnam War came and went, Elvis died, and Nixon resigned. But we still searched for the perfect shell, walked the mud flats to infinity, and savored the delightfully messy lobster dinner in Wellfleet. And we still raced to get to our blanket in time for the sunsets. The beach was our anchor.

  By 1980 we built our own house in Eastham, within walking distance of the same beach. My husband and I dreamed of our children and grandchildren visiting us there in our retirement. Who wouldn’t want to come to Cape Cod in the summer, no matter where they lived the rest of the year?

  The year 1984 was the last summer I spent on the cape. I loved the house I had helped design, and I loved the web of memories of my children that we wove for all those years at that special beach. But my marriage was over, and in the division of spoils known as divorce, my husband got the cape house while I stayed in New York.

  Today, I live in Colorado. My daughters live in the West and Northwest, but they still return to Eastham each summer. Now, as I look at these pictures, I see clearly that it is my grandchildren frolicking on the beach I knew so well. My heart aches, but I know that even though the tides of our lives go in and out, the beach and our family will remain.

  Dee Montalbano

  Timeless Sea

  I plop right down in the ocean-soaked sand, just far enough from the incoming tide, and begin digging. I use my hands, never a shovel, letting the fine wet grains stuff themselves behind my fingernails. I won’t go as far as China today. I’ll scoop just enough to make a castle. It all depends on how close I am to the surf. I dig and dig and dig until the underground flow suddenly appears and fills up the hole I created. Magic!

  At forty-two, this is all a mystery to me. How does the water come to fill the hole from below? If it’s always there, why don’t I see it until I dig? How does liquid hold its form beneath solid ground?

  I’m sure there are simple, widely known answers to these questions, but I don’t want to know; I’ve enjoyed a lifetime ofwonder. Oncemy pool fills, I set to work, letting the soupy sand trickle from my hand onto the pile of hard earth. Trickle, trickle, trickle . . . my castle grows, taller and taller, until it is time to fashion a tower—a careful drip, drip, drip as the tiny drops of soup harden into chips, creating a delicate spire.

  I am reminded of a castle in France built ages ago upon craggy rock, the sea rushing to surround it with the tide. I, too, am a creator, artist, architect, building a cathedral. I, too, have spent a lifetime at this holy task, like the children before me, and so too the ones after me—after I myself am washed away from the shore of this world. Bridges, moats, and castle walls, all crafted by loving hands, until the tide retrieves them, and we begin again.

  It is the summer of 1963, of 1981, of 2006. Time is no matter. The salt still sprays in the air, coating the downy hairs of my face. The gulls still swoop overhead; the pipers run to and fro in the surf. The sky is blue or gray or white; the water is warm, seaweed filled; or cold, bringing clamshells to the shore.

  My feet are sprinkled with sand—the tiniest specks of gray, black, and white. In the heat of noontime sun, my step quickens, becoming staccato as I dash through the soft, dry mounds of the dunes before they scorch my soles. I am heading toward my car, or toward the music of the ice cream truck, or toward cousins arriving to join us for the afternoon. . . .

  My grandmother has packed us peanut butter crackers and lemonade; later, she’ll surprise us with root beer barrels and sour balls. I’ll watch her mouth pucker, creating hollows beneath her cheekbones as she studies the crossword puzzle with a sharpened pencil behind her ear.

  When we return home, we will shower outside, and she will powder our bodies before feeding us a dinner of fried tomatoes and corn (that we shucked ourselves in the backyard). Our hair, freshly combed, will be damp as we crawl into bed, and someone will protest that the sun is still shining. “It’s after eight,” she’ll answer, firmly tucking the covers around us. The hum of the air conditioner and the faint call of gulls will be our lullaby as we sink into sleep, burrowing our way back into the timeless sea—like the tiny purple clams uncovered in our digging.

  Kelly Salasin

  The Treasure Buried in the Sand

  The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius.

  Rebecca Pepper Sinkler

  A sense of adventure is never as prevalent as it is when you are a child. When my twins, Sydney and Lincoln, were three, my husband and I took them on a two-week sailing vacation to visit their Grandma and Papa, my parents, who spend their winters on their thirty-eight-foot sailboat in the British Virgin Islands. My Auntie Carol Ann and Uncle Ken also joined us for part of this journey in their own sailboat, completing our little flotilla.

  Our holiday was filled with sailing adventures and countless trips to beautiful beaches to let the kids run off some energy. Over the course of the holiday, Uncle Ken and Papa would entertain the children with tales of the swashbuckling pirates from the past. They filled their heads with visions of sunken ships and buried treasure. Pirates dominated our trip. Sydney learned how to say “ARGH!” while at the helm of the boat. Lincoln pointed out Jolly Roger flags that decorated other boats, saying, “Pirates, Papa! Look! There’s pirates!” And Grandma outfitted them with plastic hooks and eye patches after a trip to a souvenir shop. The whole idea of pirates, with their tall ships and hidden chests of treasure, was fascinating to Sydney and Lincoln, and on almost every beach that we visited, one of them would inevitably ask, “Do you think there is pirate treasure on this beach?”

  Two days before we were ready to leave, we dropped anchor in a gorgeous little bay with one of the most beautiful white sandy beaches we had seen yet. The kids were anxious to get to shore to explore this new beach and find some pretty shells to add to their collection. We piled into the dinghy and made the journey to land, where Auntie Carol Ann and Uncle Ken came rushing over to greet us.

  “Kids, look what we found!” exclaimed Auntie Carol Ann. “A treasure map. It must have been left by pirates!”

  And sure enough, in her hands was a beat-up piece of paper with some scratched-up markings that must be directions to the hidden treasure.

  Sydney and Lincoln’s jaws dropped. They couldn’t believe their luck! A pirate map and they had it! The kids grabbed up the map and began their adventure (with a little help from Mom). The map started at the rocky boulders that bordered the beach; from there, they took three big steps until they found three sticks laying in a row. The sticks pointed them in the direction they were to walk until they found a circle of stones. They consulted their map, looking for the next clue. As they made their way through the clues on the map, more and more sunbathers left their towels on the sand and wandered over to see what they were doing, and soon a small crowd had grown to see what was going on. After a few more maneuvers, they found what they had been searching for, the “X” that marked the spot.

  The frantic digging began, with sand flying in every direction. After only a few seconds, the beautiful white sand reveled its secret, the pirate’s treasure chest that they had been hearing about for the last two weeks, and their small audience cheered. They couldn’t believe their lu
ck as they pulled out a little treasure chest that had been thoughtfully buried in a Ziploc bag to keep the sand out. They lifted the lid and revealed their loot. Wow! These pirates must have had kids; their treasure consisted of candy, toy cars, and pretty bracelets.

  My children talked about their pirate treasure on the beach for weeks afterward, and for months they would show off their “loot” to anyone who would listen. There may have been toys and candy in that little toy chest, but for anyone who was on the beach that day, we all know that the real treasure wasn’t in the chest buried in the sand.

  Elena Aitken

  Family Cottage

  The family cottage—it has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

  It suggests a place where the warm closeness of the clan outshines the summer’s sun on even the cloudiest of days; a place where the relatives gather to bask in the glow of togetherness; a place to communally “break bread,” even if it is at a kitchen table that only seats four. And a retreat where the extended family can all sleep under the same roof.

  Yes, perhaps it’s on sofas and in sleeping bags on the living room floor because there are only two bedrooms in the whole cottage, but this is the lake! So what if you’re forced to share a bathroom the size of a phone booth with nine other people, three of whom are children clammering, “I have to go potty; I HAVE TO GO NOW, MOMMY.” You’ll just have to forget your usual twenty-minute “sit-down” and perusal of the sports page; that will have to wait until you get back to the city.

  When my in-laws bought the cottage at Winnipeg Beach sixteen years ago, it was with the hope that every summer from that day on, the entire Melnicer family, en masse, would head out there on the long Victoria Day weekend and remain there to collectively laze and play and upgrade until Labour Day arrived. This marked the time when we would officially close down the cottage for the season (which is Winnipeg Beach vernacular for “having Cain, the plumber, turn the water off”). It was the Southfork concept of cottage life that my husband’s parents embraced. Perhaps they’d seen too many episodes of Dallas (my theory, but then I’m an only child); perhaps it was the model based on their own Eastern European families, large, loving, and boisterous, happily dwelling together in close quarters. Whatever the reason, the plan was clear. For more than three months every summer we would all live together in harmony and love, cooperating and compromising blissfully, day after sun-kissed day.

  Seated on the porch at the end of another perfect day, we’d watch the sun set over the lake. And we would do this in less than seven hundred square feet of space, counting the porch, for three months, with one minuscule bathroom—forgive me, I’m repeating myself.

  Now here’s the unbelievable part. I actually bought into this insanity, at least for a short time. Why did I go along with this craziness, you ask? For the sake of the family, of course!

  We were going to live like the Waltons. As an only child, I dreamed of being a Walton! The fantasy went like this: at bedtime, like John-Boy, we’d say good-night to everyone else in the house, calling out sweetly to one another from room to room; then, in the morning, we’d discuss our plans for the day over a wholesome, delicious breakfast like the Nelsons, and in the evening, like Princess tripping down the Andersons’ stairs at the end of a busy day, we’d exuberantly share all of the exciting events that made up the past eight hours. I was going to live the dream. “Sharon-Girl” couldn’t wait.

  I’m not sure exactly when it all began to unravel. I think it might have been the snoring.

  Of course, I had heard my husband snore before. In fact, his snoring was so loud some nights that I had to escape his heaving, chain-saw rumbles by exiting our bedroom altogether and utilizing my second line of defense, industrial-strength, gel earplugs. At the cottage, I learned for the first time that my husband’s snoring was part of his rich, genetic legacy, and that, unlike the Three Tenors, there was nothing soothingly operatic about this Melnicer threesome in concert.

  Finding an alternative place to sleep was a challenge. The living room, by that time of night, was fully occupied, and we were definitely out of bedrooms. So I spent the first of many nights camped out in the mosquito-infested backseat of our “spacious” two-door Plymouth Horizon.

  The waiting-in-line for a turn in the bathroom was another contributor to my coming undone. Urgency often forced me to head for the nearest dogwood bush in the overgrown backyard; brushing my teeth with the powernozzle end of the hose got to be commonplace. But I think, in retrospect, the lack of privacy was the thing that completely sent me over the top.

  No action or behavior went unobserved. Itches in private places had to go unscratched; flatulence had to be quietly contained. A normal sex life was becoming a thing of the past; I even began to hate all children. In short, life in the fishbowl was beginning to wear thin.

  My husband, forever the optimist, continued to nurse the dream of the “family cottage” for a few more summers. In fact, at one point, to placate me and to show me he was sensitive to my needs, he suggested that we renovate the wooden storage shed out back (not far from my favorite bush) and make it into our own “private little cottage.” “Little” is right! It was smaller than the bathroom! And it would have cost $8,000 to fix up!

  Thankfully, sanity prevailed. I think it was the estimate for renovating the shed that finally sunk in. I decided that I would be happier spending summer in the city, and that I’d go out to the lake occasionally for the day, sometimes even for the night.

  My daughter usually went with my husband, but she knew that she had the option of remaining at home with me, too. Joint cottage custody, if you will.

  For a while I bore the guilt of being the dream breaker, you know, the one who had to rain on the parade. There were some strained silences, some awkward conversations, but gradually, the idea of “Southfork” receded and respect for individual needs received some well-deserved attention. But what’s most important is that I got my twenty-minute sit-down with the sports section back. And we all got to be a happy family again.

  Sharon Melnicer

  Not My Idea of the Hilton

  Every survival kit should include a sense of humor.

  Author Unknown

  Some of my husband’s fondest memories from his childhood revolved around his summers at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. He was determined to share that with his children. So like a dutiful wife, I packed up the kids and off we went.

  My introduction to Sandy Island was not auspicious. The family camp operated by the Greater Boston YMCA was on a rustic island in the middle of Lake Winnipesaukee accessible only by motorboat. It was pouring rain when Paul loaded his wife, two children, diapers, and mother-in-law onto the launch and blissfully went off to sail his Sunfish over to the island.

  Packed into a tarpaulin-covered retired Coast Guard launch with all the other “campers,” my two small children and my mother were drenched and cold as we made our way across the lake. Sullen teenage camp counselors assisted us onto a slippery dock. Fellow campers scattered quickly for shelter from the driving rain. Mom and I followed stupidly, having no idea where else to go. We made our way to a lone light shining a few feet into the woods.

  A cheerful woman greeted us when it was our turn and handed me a map to our cabin. Off we went into the woods to find our cabin. I pushed the umbrella stroller with a very hefty nine-month-old John while Mom took Robyn by the hand, both of us overburdened with our totes. The kids were hungry, soaking wet, and whining, but they were in a much better mood than their mother.

  All of a sudden, Mom came to a complete stop, her feet ankle-deep in the mud. I almost crashed into her with the stroller.

  She looked at me with tired, rheumy eyes, dripping white hair, her favorite sweater drenched and muddy, and quietly said, “I lost my shoe.”

  Mom’s shoes weren’t exactly shoes. They were just a step up from slippers. She wasn’t stylish but she was comfortable. However, now she was barefoot. We rummaged around in the mud. No shoe.

  Mo
m and I trudged along some more. Then it was my turn to let out a wail as the stroller, with my baby boy, encountered the deep root of a massive oak tree obscured by three inches of mud. The flimsy aluminum of my Kmart special crumbled, and John, still tethered to the canvas seat, landed face first in soggy pine needles.

  That was it. I yanked his poor cherubic face out of the mud, his tears mingling with mine as we both sank under that huge oak, sobbing. Mom looked on helplessly with Robyn placidly by her side.

  I heard my husband’s voice call my name, but it took me a moment to locate him standing on the porch of a rough-hewn cabin. I started yelling between sobbing. What I was yelling can’t be repeated here.

  Somewhat chagrined, he came off his dry perch to assist his very distraught wife and drenched family onto the porch and into a dry cabin.

  “What do you think?” He spread his arms wide to take in the bare cabin, smelly mattresses, and moldy pillows.

  He asked so I told him, completely shattering his enthusiasm. Mom stood a few feet away. That was about as far as she could get from this domestic squabble in the tight confines of this rustic gem.

  There is no way to describe my disappointment and horror at the thought of being stuck in this drafty cabin on this drowning lake with my barefoot mother, two crying toddlers, and my inconsiderate husband (after all, how could he bring me to such a place?). I was stuck here for a week. You came on a boat on Saturday, and you left on a boat the next Saturday. Our luggage was being delivered by some anonymous boat people, so we were stuck in wet clothes.

  My daughter announced she had to go to the bathroom.