Family Series, part 2: the beach

I’ve written about the beach before. About dinner picnics. About July along the Long Island coast. There is no stopping my reminiscing when it comes to lineupthe sea shore, for my people are water people. Not the Maine coast type. Those people just want to look at unrelentingly cold waves. No, we are people clamoring to be in the waves before breakfast. We are people who live to body surf in warm waves until last light. We are also the people who stay in the shadows during the sun light hours. Fair-skinned Irish. Sunburners. Our beach hours came after 3:00 pm, the magically approved time according to our father, the fairest of all.

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Family Series, part 1: The Den

Our den was a beehive. Us coming in and rushing out. The blue glow from the nightly news. The red embers in the fireplace. Orange splashed here and there to offset the stark Danish furnishing. A bronze JFK. An iron eagle. A plaster Madonna in the corner. Us, a crew I thought typical back then. Six kids in stages of colorful rebellion.

Dance night. Once that new stereo got hooked up, 60’s rock entered the den. The front of the fireplace transformed into our stage. The reading dancinglamp twisted to shine upwards on our lip-synching. Fire pokers and longish twigs meant for kindling converted into microphones. Bursts of energy of movement of sound. Us riding the crest of pandemonium. Dogs too, jumping along like they couldn’t get enough of what we felt.

Images pop into my head even now, forty plus years afterwards. We snaked through early life with no one looking too far ahead. Nothing rocked us out of the moment. We were cemented into that time and place. Body and soul. We were a force.

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Recycled Words

My life as a blogger revolves around chasing ideas until I can find time to wrestle them into cohesively arranged words. There is a slight manic quality to my self-imposed deadline, and a rushing, always a rushing. Yet once posts are published they quickly fall aside for the next one to manifest. IMG_8214Rarely do I look back on my words. But a few posts stay vivid in my memory and I recall them like old friends with lingering fondness. This week I remembered one post in particular, and it made me laugh and then smile. Originally called “Care Package” it was written in February of 2011 after I recovered from a bad bout of the flu. I wonder how many of you read this post before? Well, perhaps even if you have, you will find it worth a second read– a recycling of something valuable. If so, do let me know!

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