Beach Week 2021

It's beach week! Or maybe I should capitalize that: It's Beach Week. It's Saturday, August 7 and we are in the car, heading north on I-95. We're about 15 minutes south of Baltimore and God willing and the creek don't rise, we will be crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge into New Jersey in about two hours. From there it's another two hours of driving along meandering secondary roads through the tomato fields and pine barrens of South Jersey. 

As always, I packed too much stuff immediately after.as always, resolving not to pack too much stuff. I'm nothing if not consistent in my lack of consistency. Next time though. Next time for sure I'm bringing one handbag, one jacket, two swimsuits,two pairs of shorts, some t-shirts, a dress, and some sandals. That's it. Maybe a sweater. Underwear and pajamas of course. Notebook, obviously, and my laptop. Books. Sneakers and socks. Some pants and a long-sleeved shirt because it gets chilly in the evening sometimes.

Well fine. Traveling light is obviously bullshit. Whatever. 

*****

It’s Sunday morning now, cool and pearly gray. The sky has a light blue tinge on the horizon and there’s a little bit of glow, a little hint of possible later sunshine; and the water of one of Stone Harbor’s many little back bays is greenish gray, no sparkle of sunlight, just a chilly dank channel that could be as shallow as a swimming pool or as deep as the Marianas Trench. A sea bird just skidded into a flapping water landing. I think it was some kind of heron. A neighbor across the channel is skimming by in a little outboard motorboat. I know even less about boats than I do about birds, so I won’t attempt to describe the boat any further except to say that it contains four people and probably could not accommodate any more. 

All of that is to say that it’s lovely outside, which is a nice contrast with inside. We’ve been lucky in the past to rent beach condos and townhouses sight unseen that turn out to be pretty nice when we show up with our suitcases and our linens. This one is a rare exception. There’s not really anything terribly wrong with it. It’s smaller and more cramped than I expected but we don’t need much room. And it hasn’t been updated in many years, a fact that also does not bother me. What does bother me is the hideousness of the Miami 1987 decor, shades of pink and peach and beige and pale gray on just about every surface. I’ll tell you about the “artwork” at another time, but suffice to say that almost every picture on every wall has a narrow chrome frame; and all of the pictures, without exception, adhere to the pink/peach/beige/gray palette. There’s a picture of two pale beige horses fading into a creamy pink haze. There’s a print of a beautiful woman dressed in peach and pink flowing robes, her beige-y blond hair cascading in waves down her back. If the “Miami Vice” detectives had been girls, this would have been their apartment. 

There’s also a “Relax” sign. There’s always a “Relax” sign at a Jersey Shore beach rental, but this one is the first pink one I’ve ever seen. Maybe the owner commissioned it. 

*****

I didn’t go in the ocean yesterday. This is rare for me, but it was cold on the beach, cold enough that I wore a hoodie over my suit and cover up, and I sat with a towel over my knees like a blanket. Getting into the water, I thought, wouldn’t be too bad. It was the getting out that I dreaded. So I sat on the sand on my tiny lightweight low-to-the-ground aluminum folding chair, and I read and chatted with my sister and ate a frozen lemonade and looked out at the ocean. My son and I gathered the first shells of the week. 

We’re particular about our shells. We favor small ones, but we won’t pass up a big one as long as it’s perfect. They all have to be perfect or nearly so. A tiny chip on an edge that does not affect the shell’s shape, we are prepared to overlook, especially if it’s a very nice shell otherwise. But as a rule, we’re looking for the best of the best. During the course of the week, only about 30 shells will make our cut. The rest of them will remain on the sand at the 82nd Street beach. 

Today, it’s sunny and clear at 8:30. The sky is pale blue and the only clouds are wispy, slightly pink cotton candy-looking things. The sun will be relentless at noon when it’s right overhead. I’ll swim in the ocean today, and then I’ll come back and swim in the tiny pool at our beach rental. 

*****

Later that morning, I rode my bike to the 111th Street beach in Stone Harbor, also known as Nuns’ Beach because 111th Street is also home to the retreat and retirement home of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. IHM sisters taught me when I was a student at St. John the Baptist parish school, now closed, in Philadelphia. 

The nuns’ home is scheduled for demolition, and a new one is to be built on the site, a bit farther back from the road. The sisters run a tiny makeshift shop selling Nuns’ Beach merchandise, and so I bought a hoodie. I asked the three dour old women sitting behind the card table on which the merchandise was displayed if they were retired sisters, as none of them wore a habit. The lady who took my money and handed me my Nuns’ Beach hoodie, who looked like every mean judgy church lady I’d ever avoided as a child, pointed to the other two, seated on folding chairs. “That’s Sister Andrew and Sister Michael,” she said. “I’m not a sister.” 

I said thank you, and told the ladies that the Sisters had taught me. Sister Andrew and Church Lady looked at me with uninterest bordering on disdain. Sister Michael said “OK, then, have a good one,” and returned to her conversation with Sister Andrew. 

I have a lot of distant and impersonal affection for the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Some of them were very good teachers, who taught me a lot. But the stone cold rudeness of the Stone Harbor nuns was also the authenticity test that proved the truth of their claim of IHM sisterhood. I didn’t ask, but I’d bet the house that they taught in Archdiocesan schools in Philadelphia. I was happy to buy a hoodie because I don’t want the old bats to go homeless, But I’m also very sure that I’d never hand a child of mine over to any of them. Fuck off, Sisters. You’re in my prayers, but only from a distance. 

*****

Stone Harbor and its sister town Avalon are among the whitest places in the United States. I’m talking about upper middle class preppy white, blond hair and blue eyes and deep tans and lacrosse and golf and sailing and flags and bumper stickers that proclaim homeowners’ and drivers’ connections with prestigious universities and private schools. It’s so white that my Korean husband and mixed sons nod in recognition to any non-white person they encounter. A few Black and Asian families venture here to vacation, but not many. Most of the people of races other than Main Line white people are here to work. People don’t notice them unless they look for them. I see sanitation workers in the morning, clearing the streets of last night’s pizza boxes and wine bottles before the morning dog walking and biking and golf-carting begins. I saw a group of Hispanic maids chatting together outside the Icona hotel and resort, animatedly waving their hands and shaking their heads and laughing and nodding in agreement with one another. They were fed up with something, probably their manager or possibly spoiled and unreasonable hotel guests. Maybe both. 

Early yesterday morning, I walked past a man who was hosing down the sidewalk outside a restaurant. He seemed surprised when I said good morning, but he returned the greeting. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken. Maybe by greeting him I wasn’t recognizing his humanity, but intruding on his privacy, on the one moment of the working day when he was away from affluent white beachgoers and free to think his own thoughts as he worked. I hope he had a good day at work. I hope the maids have an easier day today, and that departing guests will tip generously. I hope the sanitation guys won’t have to deal with anything too disgusting. 

*****

Our condo is on the bay, and when I say “the bay,” I want to be sure to first disabuse you of any notion of a large coastal mini-ocean like the Delaware Bay or even the inland Chesapeake Bay. “Bay” at the Jersey Shore is a catchall term for a salt marsh, a boat harbor, or a back canal where people dock their boats and their jet skis and go paddle boarding and crabbing. The one we are staying on is bordered on three sides by houses and buildings on 96th and 98th Streets and Third Avenue. The fourth side opens up into a larger channel that feeds into a salt marsh that connects to another channel and bay that will eventually connect with the ocean at an inlet. 

Anyway, it’s a lively scene out there. Several restaurants and bars have decks on the bay, and the houses and condo buildings almost all have boat docks and walkways down to the water. Our building has a little pool with a big deck on the bay. The deck has a gate that leads to a gangplank that leads to a ladder that leads right into the dank chilly bay water. 

On Tuesday, my son was sitting on our tiny balcony, and he called out to me. “Mom! There’s an old lady swimming in the bay.” I came to look, and after explaining to him that what he was seeing was just a “lady” and not an “old lady,” I started thinking about how I needed to swim in the bay, too. Later on Tuesday, after the beach, we saw several other people swimming in the bay, and I resolved to jump in myself. After I swam in the very warm pool, I dipped a toe in the bay, which was very cold, and I lost my nerve. Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow, I will swim in the bay FIRST, and THEN get in the pool. 

And that is exactly what I did. And it was glorious. I felt as free as a fish, swimming around in a still body of water surrounded by boat docks, facing a channel that led to even more wide-open water. I thought for just a moment about how I could keep swimming, right past the jet skiers and then past the crabbing boats heading toward the salt marsh. But then I began to panic a bit. Perhaps it was the opacity of the water--I couldn’t see my own body underneath the surface, so I certainly couldn’t see the bodies of any underwater creatures that might be swimming around me. A piece of seaweed brushed past me, and I shuddered. It was like an open water swimmer’s version of the “twisties.” I’m a good swimmer but all of a sudden I felt that I just couldn’t swim anymore, and so I got myself back to the barnacle-encrusted ladder and I pulled myself out. After a quick rinse in the shower, I jumped into the pool, which felt like a hot tub after the cold of the bay. My vacation goal, to swim in every available body of water, is accomplished. Check. 

It’s Friday now, the last day of beach week (sorry: Beach Week). It always goes by extremely fast, but especially when you’re working every day, which I did. Between several hours of work every day and entertaining my mom, who joined us mid-week, and keeping up with the daily minimum housekeeping necessary to make a small beach rental liveable for five people, it was really more work than vacation. I am trying not to feel bad about that. We had lovely weather, and I rode my bike every day, and I went to the beach every day, and I visited a bird sanctuary and a soon-to-be-demolished convent, and I shopped with my sons and bought them some nice things that they were going to buy for themselves, but sometimes you just feel like buying your kid a present, and that’s what I did. I swam in two different pools, the ocean, and the bay. So it’s been a fun week. 

If I had to pinpoint the thing that was missing from this vacation, and the thing that I crave more than anything else, it’s freedom. I am near desperate for a week or even a day when I’m not on the clock. I want to come and go as I please, with no need to account to anyone for my whereabouts, and no requirement to return by any set time. Maybe that is too much to ask. Most people don’t have that kind of freedom and I don’t expect it 365 days a year. But a day or two here or there would be nice. It’s been so long since I had an unscheduled day that I don’t even remember really when that long-ago day might have been. I suppose I’d have to check my calendar. 

*****

Quickly as ever, Beach Week is over and we're in the car winding along through the South Jersey farmland and pine barrens on one of several two lane highways that will take us back to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and back onto I-95. 

The last morning at the beach is a busy morning. I woke up at 7 and started to clean up and pack, stopping for a few minutes to have coffee on the deck. The bay was quiet. It was too early for boaters and jet skiers and paddle boarders and swimming ladies. The seagulls and herons and egrets had the place to themselves. 

My last day of Beach Week goal is always to go home with only one load of dirty laundry, to get in one last bike ride, and to make sure we don't leave anything behind. All of this, as well as packing the car and securing the bikes on the bike rack, takes three hours, and checkout time is 10 o'clock. My son dropped the keys off at 9:55, and there's one small bag of dirty laundry in the trunk. My last bike ride was a short trip to the 101st Street beach, and I gave the whole place a thorough once-over, and then did it again, just to be sure. A twice-over, if you will. Mission accomplished. 

101st Street, Stone Harbor, NJ.
August 14, 2021, 9:30 AM

*****

It’s Sunday morning now. I like the post-vacation weekend hours, even the unpacking and organizing and laundry and grocery list-making. Especially that part, if we’re being honest and I'm always being honest. I miss the beach but I don’t miss the tiny beach condo with its musty curtains and its dodgy carpets and mattresses. It’s roomy at home, and it’s clean. The couch in the family room has saggy cushions but I know where that sagginess originated from. I know exactly who slept on these mattresses and exactly whose feet have been propped up on this coffee table, the one where my feet are propped right now. 

We unpacked and organized as soon as we came home because some of us can’t breathe until everything is in order. And then I swam in the pool that had warmed back up to my preferred temperature during our absence. Today, it’s time to restock this place. I will shop for my family and for my old lady, who went a whole week without her chocolate milk and her whole wheat matzo, and then I will cook dinner for the first time in ten days. It’s Sunday, August 15. Back to work tomorrow.