Memoir (Days Like These)

It was always the sunny days that would send us running. We’d wake up early as the sun would stream in through the window that overlooked the ocean. As its sweet drops would land and dance on our eyelids, we’d be awaked with a joy that seemed to rush through our veins.

Laying in bed for a minute, the smell of salty air would slide in through the holes in the window screen. I’d toss our covers off of myself and plant my feet at the edge of my bed. Walking with light, youthful steps I’d scamper to the door. I’d open it slowly, like a spy trying to find out who was awake and what the day would hold. As it would open it took only seconds for the scent of pancakes and berries to climb its way up the stairs and into my room. So sweet and succulent my eyes would widen with the thought of consuming such a breakfast. I’d dart downstairs in my pajamas, shorts and tank top would loosely hang form my small-framed body. My long brown hair was tied back and those small annoying baby hairs would poke out in every direction. I never knew the time of waking then, there was no such thing as cell-phones in my world. Downstairs breakfast was on the table, my family though, was scattered. My dad on the front porch, which overlooked the street, reading a book, waving at passer byers on bikes, mopeds and cars. My uncle down in the back. He must’ve been tending to that garden since 6am. My aunt hovered in the kitchen, fixing the last of breakfast. My mom would be lying on the couch in the backroom which overlooked the ocean. A book in hand she was in paradise. My brother was still in bed, he didn’t find the joy of the morning the way I did. But he was “grown-up” being eight years older than myself. But soon the smell of breakfast would call us all around the table. We’d be together, talking, laughing, planning the day.

After the plates were cleaned we disperse again, each heading to their own room to get their beach bags ready. I’d slip into some sort of pink floral one-piece and throw on my baggy denim shorts and old tattered tee. After what seemed like a lifetime of waiting, the four of us would pile into my dad’s 1989 Chevy Blazer. Somehow my mom would’ve had lunches and snacks packed and these were secure in the cooler in the back of the truck along with our beach bag stuffed to the top with towels, sunblock, spending money and other various goods. We’ve had this same beach bag for years, one of those L.L. Bean bags, you know, a white canvas bag with an accented handle. Ours was red. We used that thing till the golden zipper pull broke off and the corner thread began to unravel. The scars on that bag could tell this whole story. Every beach towel stuffed in, expanding the canvas. Every time we dragged it through the sand, every time rocks below the surface would scuff the bottom lining. Every time the we’d sit too close to the waters edge and a high-tide wave would come and engulf our things.

A five minute drive and we’d be there. I’d grab my toy bucket, my brother the boogie boards and beach bag. My mom the cooler and my dad would grab the chairs. We’d unload in the sandy parking lot where finding a space to actually park was rare. I’d take off running, the sound of crashing waves dragged me along faster than it did my parents or brother. Settled on the beach under a summers sky my mom would call out to me (already well into the water) to get back out and put suntan lotion on. The sun was high in the sky and spoke the truth of every summer.

The best part, though, was when my cousins and friends got there. We come from Connecticut, they come from Virginia and Maryland…needless to say, this was the only time of year I’d be able to see them. My eight year old eyes would squint out the sun as I tried to focus on and make sense of the human like figures emerging from behind the dunes. I’d sit like this for near an hour until I could finally make out the shapes of my friends. Three kids in that family, four in the other, all of us within ten years of the others, but that never showed. We were all kids those summer days. We were all best friends. The closest to me of them all was Emma. A year younger than me, we’d be inseparable.

The eight of us kids, all but my brother, would spend the day in the water. Like the entire day. We would get out to eat and that’s it. Boogie boarding, jumping waves, playing chicken on the back of the older boys, it was a drop of heaven. The time seemed to move so fast. One second the sun was high in the sky, casting almost no shadows as it pointed down from directly above our heads. The beach was full, umbrella touching umbrella. But we’d turn our backs for a minute, for just one minute, and soon the sun would be low in the sky the way a 4four ‘o-clock sun sits, almost as if suspended from wires, and the beach would be sparse. Soon our shoulders would chill if they broke from under the water, and with that we knew it was time to go. Our parents would call us in, and reluctantly we’d head back to land. As we packed up our things, sand covered boogie boards, shovels strone about, towels soaked, we wouldn’t talk much. It was as if time stood still and we moved within frozen reality. Good-bye’s would be said and we’d all retract to our cars.

Showering was always a process. The four of us all having to share one bathroom. I’d always shower first…I needed to. I didn’t see the shower as being clean if I was the fourth to go. So I’d call it, every car ride back to my aunt and uncles house I’d call it. My brother would go second, my mom third and finally my dad. While I showered my mom would unpack the cooler and my dad would read on the porch, same place he started his days.

When we got back to the house, my aunt (basically a professional chef) would be making something elaborate for dinner, lobster rolls, grilled pizza, pasta with homemade pesto and fresh Parmesan, chicken or steak, whatever it was, it was good. And just like breakfast called us back together, dinner would do the same. After dinner, while everyone was cleaning, my brother and I would sneak homemade chocolate chip cookies from the cookie jar, some with nuts for him, and the rest without, for me.

By the time it was dark, the dishes would be done and the table would be cleared, and as everyone started to run out of things to do around the house I knew it was time. Around seven ‘o clock we’re head into town. “Town” as we came to call it consisted of one road lined on one side with stores, the other where the ferry’s would port. We’d walk around and look into shops, all of which sold over-priced tourist-esc clothing and memorabilia. Some galleries, a photo shop, a closed down hotel, a post office, a ton of restaurants, a one-screen movie theater once converted from a roller rink. Town was something special, at least to us. But if I had to pick one place that was better than any other, it was the Ice Cream Place…original name, I know. There we’d meet up with the other two families and the twenty of us would form a line that, before we got it, hardly existed at all. Us kid would order first, a small moose-tracks in a cup with rainbow sprinkles for me. Once all 40 scoops of ice cream had been scooped the parents would find a table outside. But we wouldn’t sit with out parents. Us kids would sit on the fence. Along the street side of the Ice Cream Place there was once a huge fence. I think it was actually more of a gate, but it was “the fence.” The white paint was hardly chipping, and the hinges were secure, it’d hold our weight without a doubt. We’d line up on the edge of the fence, we felt bigger than the world itself.  In one single row, the eight of us would sit shoulders touching. The air was warm, but the ocean breeze was cool. If someone had seen us then. We told the story of island summers. We were out later than we’d be on school nights, we were laughing, smiling ear to ear. There was not a care in the world. Our hair told the story of island summers, wind blow and left for the air to tame. Our skin told the story of island summers, sun kissed and freckled. Our clothes told the story of island summers, lose fitting tee-shirts, light wash denim shorts, brown strapped sandals, the boys in gym shorts and graphic tee’s. We’d sit on that fence like it was home. And it was home. That island was home. The days leading up to these two weeks would be counted down on calendars that decorate our bedroom walls. The months would pass slowly, and as soon as June hit we knew we were in the home stretch. The first two weeks of August we’d spend on that island, everyday the same as the last and the same as the next. It became a second home to all of us, and a first home for all of our hearts. The stories I could tell you. Everywhere you look there’s a story we wrote, every street corner, every shop, every inch of that beach. We lived our lives as poets, as novelists, recording in our memories the very blood that kept these island summers alive.

As I laid in bed at the end of each day, my window open and salty air seeping in through the tiny holes in the screen, I couldn’t help but smile. We were the generation that would keep a legacy alive.

[alc]