Back home from a glorious week at the ocean. We tried to calculate how many summers we’ve trekked just far enough from home to call it vacation, but not so far that we can’t scoot back for work: we’re thinking around seven, but the number changes depending on who you talk to. Gram doesn’t even weigh in anymore.
I’d planned on reading a lot (I brought my biography of Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massey, but that tome belongs nowhere near a beach). I’d planned on writing (there seem to be poems swimming in my head, they won’t stop persisting). I thought I’d have long stretching hours of alone time, thinking time, with a little chatting here and there.
But siblings and cousins, a Gram, an aunt and uncle, make thinking time a little harder to come by. Instead of reading in solitude, I played endless games of Cranium, a new game called Hit or Miss, and Cribbage was always going on, the players switching in and out. We walked on the beach every morning and evening, sat in the sun, actually swam in the frigid New England ocean and loved it.
That’s my biggest problem with the things I love most – reading, writing – they are such isolating events, sometimes. The reason I love them is because of the people. The words that can translate one human experience to another. And because this is largely why I find myself longing to read a good book, it is also largely why I often don’t have the attention span to wait it out.
There are so many beautiful things to be seen, so many interesting people to talk to, so many memories with family.
And to return to the writing afterwards, with fresh eyes and a more intricate history.
Nothing gets me thinking like the ocean.
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