1. I think it's pretty funny that I like to cook different and creative things when all my family wants is meatloaf and sloppy joes. Ha! Joke on me, right? It's all good. Callum really will eat anything I put in front of him (the spicier the better), but we had both meatloaf AND sloppy joes this week, and the gusto with which both my men gobbled up those dinners, not to mention the glee? Well, lesson learned. When they're happy, I'm happy.

2. I think I've been thinking some about how outsiders see us lately. Outsiders? Wrong word. For the next few weeks, we'll have a young woman living with us while she's in Virginia working on efforts for the gubernatorial campaign. She's a recent graduate of the college Neel and I attended (where we met, actually), and she found us through the alumni directory. She needed a cheap place to stay for a short amount of time (just through the election), so we had a family meeting and decided, why not here? She got here Tuesday, and she's been nothing but a delight ever since.

You can't help but wonder, though, how someone new will see you. After Neel told her to be sure to have cash for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, I said, "Okay, Dad..." Are we fuddy? Are we mainstream? Quirky and fun? Does she even give us a second thought? Only time will tell, I guess. At least the guest room was ready for her. I hope she's cozy.

3. I think I really appreciate the nudge that Christine gave me with this post about shooting in black and white. I tried to do it for most of the week, and I'll share some of those photos on Tuesday if you care to have a look. I'm not sure I'm getting it yet, but I'll keep trying!

4. I think I'm still not completely out of my funk. I'm getting there, but two of my classes didn't go (not enough students), and even though I've been reassured left and right that it's not personal, it's hard not to feel it, you know? Baby steps, I guess. Perhaps I need to read more of those articles about jumping back from failure. Or not. I've been thinking about friendship too. I'm enjoying some deepening relationships very much, but I've been hurt lately too. How do you let go of a thrum of anger when you feel you've been let down by someone you love?

5. I think it's good that I was "off" these last two weeks. Well, "off-ish." I'll tell you more about what I did next week. I wasn't offline as much as I wanted to be, and I didn't get things straightened out quite the way I wanted to, but where things were slipping into chaos, they're now merely busy. I guess that's a good thing, right?

We were beach vacationers when I was growing up. The Outer Banks of North Carolina; Isle of Palms, South Carolina; St. Simons Island, Georgia; back to Isle of Palms. For one week out of each summer (minus the summer of my 14th year when we went to London), the Atlantic Ocean and its southern coastal beaches were my playground.

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year in college, my BFF (ha! like that term existed back then!) Sarah and I traveled to Charleston to see a friend of hers and spend a couple of days on Isle of Palms. (We felt very grown up.) One night we went to dinner with Sarah's friend, her friend's brother and a bunch of other people to a Greek restaurant (my first taste of Greek food, and the beginning of another life-long love affair), and as we were walking out to our cars, the velvet curtain of humidity hit me slap in the face. Sea gulls keened above our cars, and miles inland you still smell the salt spray. I had the thought in that moment, under the muddied haze of a street light, that I'd give just about anything to live near the ocean.

And here we are.

Cue my restless heart.

I have been beyond restless this summer. Tapping into emotions I can't even begin to share with you here. (I doubt you want to hear them anyway.) And always, always, it's back to the water for calm, for peace. For my soul.

It's been the funniest summer here. Cool. Rainy. Gray. Not the hot days we usually have that inspire you to want to dip your toe in the water. No days where you literally hot foot it across the white expanse of sand to get to the tide line. Our beach days came in a flurry at the end of the summer, enough so that on each car ride Cal would say, "I wish we'd taken advantage of it more." Even then, most were monochromes of gray and tan. Not the bright whites, blues and golds that we're used to.

I'll take it though, any way it comes.

Different every day and achingly familiar too, I'll take it any way it comes.

I say it too often for my family's comfort, that we're not close enough. It's not convenient to get to the ocean, but I'm starting to think it's necessary. Christine has written, quite longingly, in the comments of my posts about the beach, of our ocean with its warm waters and gentle swells. I know what she means. It feels like home.

My friend Marianne and I have developed a habit of taking walks at the oceanfront on Wednesday mornings, early, when no one is out and about. You can tell that it's fall there already. The sun is still warm, but the sea is foamy and the light is just different somehow. Last week, she'd hurt her foot and I was bone-tired, so instead of walking we sat and talked. The light sparkled golden, and the ocean was slatey blue. There was a brisk wind, and white caps dotted the water and the waves chopped onto shore, not curling gracefully toward the sand. Every so often, we'd draw breath from another hilarious story, and I'd look around and think, I can't believe I live here.

Funny. This isn't at all the post I intended to write when I went to tell you about our beach this summer. Writing does that to you. Like I said, it's totally different here in the autumn. I'll show you that too. Soon. I promise.

five things, september 27

summer beach {life}