8 Weeks

"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came." 

-- John F. Kennedy

Picture From a 1960 Sports Illustrated Article

Over the 2022 Veterans' Day weekend, TSO and I took a day trip to Hyannis, our local shopping mecca.  Hyannis has a Target, Staples, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, even a freestanding Macy's. Woo hoo!

Hyannis also is home to the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum, a charming local institution that focuses on the late President's deep connection to Cape Cod. TSO wanted to visit the museum, which is located in the former Hyannis town hall. Among the current exhibits is "Presidential Summers: The Kennedys on Cape Cod." This exhibit was both informative and delightful. In addition, we were treated to a talk by one of the museum's founders.

While we walked through the exhibit, the quote at the top of this post caught my eye. The words struck at my core, as they succinctly and eloquently capture the allure of, and the longing for, the ocean throughout my life. 

Before we moved to Massachusetts, I had lived in New Jersey all 61-1/2 years of my life, always within 60-90 minutes of the Atlantic Ocean and even closer to lesser (some substantially) bodies of water. My childhood home was a couple of blocks from the Delaware River. Although that waterway's black polluted water smelled awful, I knew that, eventually, it emptied into the Atlantic Ocean. That gave me comfort.

The Mullica River was just across the street from my paternal grandparents' house in Atco, New Jersey. At that point, it was a mere stream flowing not too far from the headwaters, which were located just past a clearing in the woods beyond the point where my Grandfather had built a bridge across that stream long, long ago. He constructed the bridge with railroad ties affixed to concrete piers on both sides. What an adventure it was to walk through the woods to "Grandpop's Bridge," as we called it, to explore all that the natural world had to offer young children. When I last visited the area, in late May 2020, Grandpop's Bridge was gone. In its place was a "pretender" bridge. With a little effort, however, TSO and I did find remnants of the old railroad ties and the concrete piers.  

Pretender Bridge

Remnants of Concrete Pier
and Railroad Ties Under the
Fake Bridge

When I was a young girl, I was told that, if I walked along the stream, it would eventually become the Mullica River, which would eventually lead to the Atlantic Ocean. The idea of walking through the Pine Barrens to get to the ocean was far more romantic than the idea of walking through dingy old river towns to get to the Atlantic. So, one day, my cousin Al and I tried to take that walk along the stream to the river to the ocean, but overgrowth ended our journey fairly quickly. Still, there was comfort in knowing that there was an escape, a way out, another path. Even as an adult, with excessive overgrowth and only a pretender bridge to cross, I relished in the thought that that little stream, some persistence, and a hacksaw could "get me outta here." As to what I was escaping from and where I was going, you'll have to wait for my memoir. 

The lure of the sea became greatest when I started practicing law, but a life there was not to be, as ocean front properties were unaffordable and too far from Philadelphia for me. Lake life became this poor girl's substitute. I spent years looking for an affordable vacation lakeside retreat in the Pocono Mountains. They, too, were out of reach and, I thought, far away. I don't know why the Land o' Lakes didn't occur to me all those years. It was, after all, just about around the corner from my grandparents' house. Yet, again, with TSO's assistance, in 2012, we finally figured out that we could live year round in a permanent residence on a lake in a one-square-mile tiny borough, which had a total of 21 lakes within its borders. In addition to the little puddle of a lake that our house sat on, we were steps away from two of the three largest lakes in town where there were beaches and lifeguards. For 10 years, "Lake Life" was a happy substitute for the ocean. 

Our Lake House

The View From Our Living Room
(The Lake Is Outside Those Windows)

Where Backyard Meets Lake

The Lake

On September 30, 2022, we sold our little lake house and, the very next day, we were installed here on the beach of Cape Cod Bay with our daughter and her family just about one-and-a-half hours away instead of five-and-a-half hours. Oh, and I was now retired. Life simply couldn't get any better than that. "Lake Life" was far behind me.

I'm not a sailor or a motor boater or even a paddle boarder, and we've been unable to go for a swim in the bay, given that we arrived in the fall. In that sense, I have not made any connection with the water beyond dipping in a toe or two by the water's edge last year. Yet, that feeling of being home, of returning from "whence we came," has been with me from day one and carries me through the daily cycle of life. Every day, whether I'm sitting in the Yellow Starfish Throne reading or in a chair at the head of the kitchen table writing, the bay is my companion, my seemingly infinite muse. I sense the Bay's emotions. Its angry waves during bad weather. Its joy at the end of a storm when small white caps dance gleefully on multiple shades of small blue swells, the sun's reflection transfiguring those caps into a brilliant, glorious white that simply cannot be captured in a photograph. The serenity of low tide on a windless, sunny day when sea and beach create the illusion of meeting and melding as seamlessly as sea and horizon. The playfulness of the tide coming in, its patient and gradual envelopment of the dividing line between land and sea, life and death, providing a twice daily reminder of Mother Nature's power and her mercy. I feel whole, and the world is right.  

Exactly 8 weeks from today, we will be leaving our little beach house on the bay. That feeling of being whole is dulling. Disorientation is setting in, and that old, familiar restlessness, born of the internal feeling of inexplicable loss, is slowly returning to my core. Yes, my body knows that I will soon be leaving the place "from whence we came. "