throwback summer vacation thursday

We are now in our first full week of summer vacation, which has me thinking about summers of the past ...

No castle this, the kid helps make a sand fortress

Three generations on the beach

Loving cousins

At the Avon Inn

city girl no more

Continuing my country mouse, city mouse theme ...

I have lived at least half of my life in cities. Big ones. But I am finally learning that you can take the girl out of the country (or away from the beach), but you can't take the beach out of the girl.

As we planned our recent summer vacation to the Jersey Shore I had fully intended to spend a few hours in New York, either on the way in, or the way out, or both. But on our ride out from the airport, it quickly became clear that wasn't going to happen. Not only did it take forever to get the rental car and get the hell out of town (note to self — when going to Jersey, never fly into to La Guardia again), but that trip through town was more than enough of a taste of New York for me and my daughter.

The best thing about flying into LaGuardia is definitely the view

It's amazing how quickly the hectic pace can get under your skin. The traffic was (not surprisingly) horrendous, but it also gave me the opportunity to stop and gawk like a tourist and see what had changed. Driving through midtown we got some fabulous views of the Empire State Building. And also of Times Square. I have spent some time in New York since last I lived there — we spent Thanksgiving in midtown about five years ago — but this time all of the Blade Runner-esque video screens really made me feel like I was in the middle of some hectic soda commercial. Not a feeling I am really looking to experience.

Approaching the Empire State Building

Stuck in traffic, below - but we got a great shot

Our relaxed time at the beach was so wonderful that I couldn't even imagine cutting it short to battle for a few hours with the crowds and pace of the city. The drive back confirmed that feeling. Our rental car, which had behaved perfectly for ten days while I tooled up and down the Jersey Shore, to Long Beach Island and back again, started to give me an error message and red overheating signal as we idled in blistering midtown traffic. It was like a scene from a movie, with a red bar increasing on the control panel and the countdown to the shutting down of the car in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...

I turned the whole car off, and luckily, a traffic cop had us sit through two lights while he allowed pedestrians to navigate Times Square. When he finally motioned us forward, I tentatively started up the engine and the red signal was, thankfully, gone. We made it safely to the airport, although it was a nerve-racking drive, and reported the mishap. Freak occurrence? Omen? I'm not sure.

Will I ever vacation in New York again? I'm sure I will. But I definitely got the message loud and clear as to what I want from my life (and maybe always have). A more relaxed pace. Near the water. And with as few red signals and dramatic countdowns as possible.

jersey girl

Although it's been over three weeks since we returned from our Jersey Shore vacation, I haven't had a lot of time to process it all yet. We've been adjusting to going back to school, and getting our first colds of the school year (I seemed to get it worse than the kid, go figure).

I grew up at the Shore, and there is always an element of nostalgia in coming back. I was afraid that might be the only thing pulling me there, and was presently surprised that wasn't the case. Yes, it is always fun to drive around and see what has survived since my childhood days and be disappointed in what hasn't (this year's big heartbreak — Freedman's Bakery is no more.) But there is something else going on, too. Going home isn't just about memories, it's also about physically connecting to a place. I live by the ocean in Florida, but it is still renewing and refreshing to dip my toes in the cold Atlantic of New Jersey, the ocean of my childhood. Maybe it's in my DNA.








There is also something about the pace that I love. I grew up in a vacation spot. I seem to have always wanted to live where everyone, i.e., tourists, want to come and visit, whether it be the beach, or a major city like New York or Washington, D.C.

As much as I enjoyed my time in those urban metropolises, the other thing that seemed crystal clear to me on this recent vacation was how much I love the beach lifestyle. Ron Jon's anyone? I may never have learned to surf, but I completely connect with a slower, more relaxed vibe. Like the "salt life" stickers you see on cars everywhere down here, I connect to the ocean, the salt air, the sand in my toes.

Where we live now, Palm Beach, can be a bit fancy sometimes, but that's not what I'm about, and it's not why I'm here. It's the ocean, across the road, that calls me. And I can't help but answer, "Hello, old friend."

throwback thursday: old barney

I grew up at the Jersey Shore and spent loads of time on Long Beach Island, but I don't think I ever climbed Old Barney, its lighthouse — that is, until last week. I wasn't sure at first that I'd make it all the way up, but thanks to some way stations along the way, I did. And it was great. What a view.

Vintage postcard from The Rix Mix

The kid and I had a great time.

It's a long way up

Following the kid

Don't look down!

What a view from the top

And back down again

throwback thursday: what exit?

This week as we continue to enjoy our Jersey Shore vacation, here's a look back at an earlier trip to the beach.






By the way, we took exit 7A on the Turnpike.

throwback thursday: jer-sey!

We are off for a Jersey Shore vacation today. Yes, we may live by the beach year-round, but there's something about Jersey and going home. Plus, the kid and I haven't had a long break in a really long time. Really looking forward ...

throwback thursday: life's a beach

Some more vintage family photos from the Jersey Shore. Getting myself in the mood for our upcoming vacation.

My great grandmother Paola, second from the left, c. 1920a

My dad striking a pose, second from right, with his brother Jim and cousins, c. 1935

One of my mom's pastels of my brother, dad, and me at the beach

My cousin Ann and brother John pose before a sand sculpture masterpiece, c. late '80s 

The kid contributes to a sand castle's fortifications

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• throwback thursday: jersey shore vacations

throwback thursday: jersey shore vacations

I grew up at the Jersey Shore, so every childhood summer was usually spent there, with family and friends coming to visit us. Later years in NY and DC had me a bit land-locked, so I was happy to be able to drive to Jersey for the occasional vacation. I have taken the kid a few times over the past few years, but last year was the one she really remembered, and now she wants us to start our own tradition. So in honor of my booking an August vacation at the Shore, here are some pics from past beachy times.

I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for mom (left) and her girlfriends thinking that the Shore was a great  place for a summer vacation from the city

Hanging out poolside at the Avon Inn, where my grandmother always stayed when she would visit us

One of my mom's effortless pastels, of me trying to fly a kite on the boardwalk

The kid checking out a jetty

Having fun on the rides at Jenkinson's pavilion

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the boardwalk, then ...

back to the beach

It might seem strange for someone who lives so close to the beach, but I am really looking forward to our upcoming Jersey Shore vacation. I have realized that I haven't had a real vacation, a real break, since long before we moved down here. I haven't been on a plane since the kid was just a tiny one. So anyway, next week I will be leaving my beachy home to go stroll along the beach where I grew up. And I can't wait.

boston

Thoughtful at Cheers, originally uploaded by xoxoxoe.

I was born at the Jersey Shore. My father was born in the Bronx. We were, are, and always will be New York Yankees fans. But unlike a lot of my fellow Yankee lovers I've never hated the Boston Red Sox. A few summers ago we took a New England vacation in search of our Salem witchery roots and Boston was one of the stops on our trail. I really loved the city. Its history, its rough-and-tumble edge. We didn't see a ballgame, but we did lots of other touristy things. We took a ride in a swan boat, we went to the aquarium, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts. We ate at Cheers. We drove and walked around town. We had a lot of chowdah.

I've been thinking a lot the past few days about faith, and what we all choose to believe. Although I don't believe all the pretty Bible stories, I do believe that God could walk as a man, woman or child (even animal) among us and might even do that on occasion. Maybe even more often than we think. But when confronted with the sort of human disaster of the past few days, all those beliefs and hopes seem shattered. All I can do right now is think about the innocent people who are gone and the people who are still grappling with their injuries, and all the people who are helping them and hoping for them and praying for them.

I'm so very sorry Boston, that this has happened to you. That this could happen to anyone anywhere.

shell game

Even though I now live at the beach, or at least a stone's throw away, I still like to collect shells. There is something about finding a perfectly shaped, pristine shell, amid all of the worn, crunched, and battered fragments that is eminently satisfying. A real find is a shell with a hint of color — anything from purple to pink to deep orange to bright yellow also makes for a happy discovery.

Sometimes I wonder if all of our likes and predilections were imprinted on us during a tiny childhood window. I used to live near the beach when I was a kid too, at the Jersey Shore, a quite lovely, laid-back place, very different from any current cartoons of the same name on television. My family used to go to the beach nearly every night after dinner. My dad would surf cast, my brother and I would play in the sand, and my mom would draw us with her pastels.

We would only go to the beach, go swimming, when friends or relatives came to town in summertime. My mom didn't drive, and it was too far to walk. On one of those excursions I must have filled my pail full of shells. I remember I found a fragment, probably of a clam shell, that had hints of pink and was bordered in a deep purple. Such delicate color, as opposed to the usual gray-to-white clam shells or tons of mussel shells that littered the beach.

I treasured my find, like a talisman, and kept it for years. Now I have no idea what became of it. But maybe I scour the sands still, in search of that missing piece of my Jersey girl past. Or, more likely, I really just like surprises in nature, and the color purple.

happy father's day

I still miss the old man ...

Here he is in front of his parents' house in Belmar, Jersey Shore

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• Matisse in Belmar, NJ (culturechoc2010.wordpress.com)

to all the rooms i've loved before ...

I was thinking of all the different places I've lived.

When you live in older houses or apartments you are coming into spaces lived in, loved in, by others. Do the former inhabitants leave traces? The only place I have lived so far that was "new" was a model home ranch house that my parents bought when I was ten. But it wasn't brand spanking new. It was the ranch-style model for a South Jersey development, so had scores of families trooping through, wondering if they could fit their lives into its spaces. It had a typical seventies-style decor, with gold wall-to-wall and a kitchenette with gold appliances and wallpaper in tones of gold, rust and olive. What was it about the seventies and flat, fall colors?

 I forgot about the dark brown cabinets.

The house before that one was a Victorian that I still wish I could scoop up today and restore to its former glory. I don't think my brother or I have forgiven my parents for taking us away from this house. It had two sets of stairs, a storm cellar with a dirt floor where my dad had his photo enlarger set up. There were some great trees—there was a crab-apple grove in the back and a gigantic willow tree in the front yard where you could hide under the weeping branches. It had an arbor with wisteria bordering a garden my mother had lovingly planted. There was a detached spooky garage and a gardener's shed that I used to sneak into and play all sorts of make-believe games. We moved when I was in second grade. They came and pulled me out of class, actually, and took me home to see a moving van in the driveway. Somehow my parents thought it would be better to not tell my brother and me until the last minute that we were moving, or not tell us at all. It wasn't better. It sucked.


The house had two porches, one at the side and one at the front and a flagpole in the front yard.

By the wisteria arbor.
Other members of my family still like to go to that part of the Jersey Shore on summer vacation and on the years that I join them there for a day or two I always drive past that house, looking for a "for sale" sign. But there never is. The people who live there now cut down the willow tree and put a huge abomination of a swimming pool right in the middle of the front yard. They had to destroy the garden and the wisteria arbor and chop down the willow to fit that in. Idiots.

The house these days.
After the beautiful Victorian we lived in a small town where we could walk everywhere—to school, to the store, to the water. My brother and I didn't realize that this house was rented. Apparently my parents were trying to build or buy in the neighborhood, but it never worked out, so we moved even further south in New Jersey, leaving our new set of friends once again.



The house was painted a bright, canary yellow with dark brown trim. Check out the striped jeans. On my brother and my mom. No need to tell you the decade.
 This was when we moved into the model ranch house. At least we finally stayed, long enough for my brother and me to finish elementary school and get through middle and high school. When I left home and went to art school in New York I lived in the dorm for a year, but was shuttling home to New Jersey so often, or out to Long Island to visit my aunt and uncle, that it never really felt like home.

I had my first home, beyond the scope of my parents, when I moved the summer between freshman and sophomore year at Parsons into a fourth floor railroad apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It was a crazy apartment. It actually tilted, so if you spilled water or dropped something on the floor that could roll, roll it would, from one wall to the other. That tilt feature became an endless source of amusement for guests and spilled drinks. My cats especially enjoyed playing with marbles. or not exactly playing, but whacking a marble and letting the apartment do most of the work. But there was also beauty in that apartment. The afternoon light, between 3 and 4 p.m. would pour in and give the wooden floors and the old moldings a gorgeous glow. No matter what was going on in my life at the time, just hanging out in the front room in the afternoon was always a soothing and reinvigorating experience.

The afternoon light of Park Slope, Brooklyn.

When I left New York for Washington, D.C. I always seemed to live somewhere near the zoo in Northwest. The apartments of D.C. are not that much different from New York, except that the rooms are a tad more spacious, but with lower ceilings. As much as I loved living in Washington, the outside surroundings were more enthralling than our indoor ones. The trees, flora, buildings and statuary were what appealed to me most.

Always bright and full of light

I'm still getting used to our new life and my new space in Florida, but I can't complain about the view. I find myself outside here even more than Washington. And I'm an indoorsy type by nature, Bookish, computerish.

Getting ready to walk on the beach.

But I could walk by the beach forever. It's always changing, always offering up new discoveries.