weekend recap, september 23

1. Friday hike | 2. Night light | 3. Day light | 4. First Landing | 5. In a row | 6. Autumn at the Beach | 7. Lucy meets the water  | 8. First at bat | 9. Making it matter | 10. Cocktail | 11. Breakfast sandwich | 12. Sweet ride | 13. Cal | 14. Buster | 15. Easy Sunday

It was good. We all seem to have nabbed Cal's slight cold, but otherwise, I'd clock this weekend as a good one. I'm back on my hike routine with my dear friend Tracy and that was pretty much the highlight of my Friday. I wish I could take you guys with me sometime. Wouldn't that be fun? 

Neel came home from work to find a new stretchy leash sitting on the counter. When he asked what it was for, I said, "I'm taking Lucy to the beach tomorrow. You're more than welcome to come with me if you want." It was at least the 3rd weekend that I'd wanted to go for a walk on the beach and we hadn't. I was tired of that. So we got up on Saturday and took Lucy to the beach.

I loved it. 

She remains uncertain. 

Saturday afternoon Cal had his first baseball game of the season. He's playing Little League Fall Ball, which is pretty low key. It's an instructional league, and it's giving Cal some much needed at-bats. His team had only had two practices before Saturday's game, and, well, it showed. But here's the thing. Our kids (boys AND girl) are a bunch of scrappy 13 and 14 year olds playing against SIXTEEN YEAR OLDS. Need I say more?

Those big kids had a lot of swagger. They sauntered up to the plate. They jawed with their coach (not impressed). They jawed with the smattering of parents and friends in the stands. There weren't many of us there, and since at the start of the game the sun was shining directly on the bleachers on the 3rd base side (where the visiting team generally sits)  a lot of us were sitting on the 1st base line. Parents from both sides chatted and talked. It was all very friendly; these games are more often than not.

One of our kids drew a walk, and I cheered. (To be honest, there was little to cheer for for our guys, so we were taking what we could get.) The catcher from the other team (yes, you read that right) , takes off his mask and says to me, "Wait, are you for them?"

"Yes. I am." 

"Why are you sitting on this side? You should be sitting on that side," and he cocks his head back to the 3rd base line. 

Do I need to remind you that this is the TEENAGE PLAYER FOR THE OTHER TEAM?

Perhaps, given the distance, he didn't see my eyebrows go up as I said, "I can sit anywhere I want, darling." 

Cal was next at bat.  

It's possible that I embarrassed myself with how loud I whistled and cheered when he batted in two runs with a double that went over 300 feet. Perhaps.

Boy earned himself some wings for dinner that night. And you know what? Even he and his teammates noticed how disrespectful that other team was to their coach during and after the game. They lost, but they learned a lot and they improved over the course of the afternoon, even. I'll take a loss like that, where our kids hold their heads up and respect the men who come to coach them over a sloppy win any day.

Back to the beach Sunday morning. This time to meet my friend (and photographer crush) Kim and her husband and their dog Buster. Lucy is still uncertain, but she's getting there. We might even let her off leash next week. She can't run too far, right? 

Back Friday, my sweets! This is my last week off. Promise! XOXO

summer beach {life}

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.