The beach is about a 10 minute drive from my house. If I park in the main lot and walk along the rock wall, it will eventually drop off and open up to velvety dunes with tufts of beach grass and an even wider, longer stretch of beach. If I keep walking all the way to the end, the beach abruptly stops, and the ocean surrounds me. I can see the downtown area in the distance. I can see a lighthouse, a chunk of land that belongs to Clark Island, although I’ve never been there.
Walking from the parking lot to the tip takes about an hour and a half with a steady pace, a walk that gets quieter and more beautiful the further you go. I grew up going to this beach with my mother, sister, and cousins, back when there weren’t so many rules about where you could park. Back when towards the tip of the beach was the best place to find whole sand dollars. Now as the town has grown more populated, more touristy, it’s as if the sand dollars know that the locals take better care of them and have stopped washing ashore. I rarely find them anymore.
I woke up early the other morning. Drank my coffee, read my book, and then slipped into my bathing suit and a pair of shorts. I was on the beach by 8:30.
I left my phone in the car and walked, the breeze warm, the sun hot on my shoulders, and I let my brain wander to the sound of the low tide waves. When I got to the end, more tired than I expected from the sand slowing my steps, I paused for awhile, looking out at the water. I didn’t want to move fast. I wanted this morning to drag on and on. I have a tendency to always think ahead, even when I’m doing something leisurely, like this beach walk. It makes me walk faster as if I need to finish this lovely activity on a time schedule. That day I didn’t have one, and I made a conscious effort to keep my mind in the moment as much as possible.
On the way back, I shed my shorts and sneakers and dunked in the ocean. The temperature was perfect, a little chill to cool off my sweaty body but warm enough that I found myself unable to get out of the water. Each time I thought, maybe I should head back, it was as if I was a child again saying, just a little bit longer, just a few more laps, just after I dunk my head again. I must have stayed in the water for half an hour. Swimming, floating, holding my breathing, and listening to the rush underwater.
On the walk back, the beach had filed up substantially, full of umbrellas and coolers and kids running towards the waves. I noticed two girls, probably around 11 or 12, walking closely together, away from their mothers and siblings. They looked down at their feet as they talked, their bathing suits in bright colors.
“Do you have a boy doctor or a girl doctor?” I heard one of them ask the other.
“Girl,” the other one said. “I had a boy doctor once, but he gave me the creeps.”
I strained to hear the rest of their conversation as I walked by, but the breeze picked up and drowned them out.
I was thinking about the girls as I swam. I just finished reading We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida, an absolutely delightful novel that I hadn’t expected to love so much. Right as the summer heat rolled in, I began to crave friendship stories, especially between girls. Coming of age stories have a special place in my heart, and stories of girlhood will always pull me in. After reading Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? for the first time this year (I know seriously, where have I been?) I kept trying to find more like it. We Run the Tides was just what my girl doctor ordered. It follows Eulabee, an eighth-grader attending a private all-girls school in San Francisco, whose friendships and life get turned upside down after her friends, Julia and Maria Fabiola, report having been flashed while the three of them were walking to school. But Eulabee claims it never happened, which in turn leaves her ostracized from the group during that precious summer before 8th grade starts. There are crushes and cliques, anxiety about periods and bras, the lack of control over their changing bodies. The power that comes along with that.
“I was betrayed by my femininity,” Eulabee remarks after getting her period at a very ill timed moment. All the stuff that makes up my favorite genre. The aliveness of girls.
As I swam that day, I thought how enthralled with each other’s company those girls looked on the beach, not aware that anyone was watching them. They moved with such vitality.
I feel the most alive in the summer —the most connected to my body. I love my body in a special kind of way this time of year. I feel lighter, my skin healthy and sun kissed, my feet without shoes, unrestricted. (Most of my summer wardrobe is selected based on if I can get away with not wearing a bra.)
This feeling has bled into my reading life. I want to read about the girls experiencing their bodies for the first time, learning about love and loss, crushes and heartbreaks, and what can happen in the short span of a summer.
There is a reason coming of age is such a popular genre. I think it reminds us of how alive we used to be. Or can be, if we remember how.
My husband and I love to go to concerts together. We got tickets to 4 different shows this year, what I’m referring to as the Kailey and Marty Summer Concert Series. For the second stop on the tour, we saw Dirty Heads in Boston. The crowd was a mixture of frat boys, old hippies in Grateful Dead t-shirts, teenagers sucking on vapes, braless girls in halter tops. We fell somewhere in between, or maybe a little mix of everyone, Marty with his long, curly hair and forearm sleeve, me in a tiny tank top (no bra needed!), and a pair of Vans Old Skools.
The vibe was upbeat and smelled like weed. It’s easy to be happy when there is reggae music playing. I have a rotating playlist I blast all summer, Bob Marley, Slightly Stupid, Stick Figure. Would it even be summer if I didn’t play “Slow Ride” by Sublime 100 times? (or any Sublime, c’mon now) Even though I was stone sober for the entire show, I sang with the crowd songs about drinking by bonfires, California living, sandy beaches, smoking insane amounts of pot, of girls in bikinis. I let myself be overcome by the pulsing music, that pounding bass in my chest. I screamed and danced and waved my arms around.
There is nothing like the feeling of being lost in a sea of bodies and letting yours do what it wants. No one is watching, all eyes are on the stage. I fully let loose. I left the show with ringing ears, sweat matted along my hairline, and a dazed smile on my face.
There is a friendship story in my draft that I’m looking forward to exploring in my next revision. It’s been developing slowly, in the notes section of my Scrivner document, but it’s been taking up a lot of space in my writer's brain. A few months ago, I let myself go wild and explore these friends a little more, poke at their story. I love what I wrote, and I discovered a part of my main character that I realized had been hiding there all along. Who she had as a friend in her childhood and teenage years really matters. She discovers so much about her body, and about her desires with this friend, during their time spent together away from school, during the summer.
I thought about them, too, as I swam that morning. (Daydreaming about your novel while in a back float in the ocean, the sun beaming down on you is a particular delicacy that I was experiencing for the first time.) I could see my main character doing this, (she lives near a beach too), thinking about her friend, who they used to be and what they weren’t anymore as the tide gently pulled her body. I felt deeply connected to her, making me want to run to the page. That feeling that creates butterflies in your chest.
I started just reading The Girls of Corona Del Mar. With a very summary cover and a vague description of two teen friends, I expected this one to align with my theme. Although a little darker than I assumed, Rufi Thorpe’s writing is incredible, and this story is heartbreaking, raw, funny, and beautiful. I’m loving it so far.
My self made novel draft deadline is fast approaching (August 5th!). I have a vision of myself throwing my hands up after typing “the end” before slamming my laptop shut. I need a break from her- draft 3 has taken a lot out of me. As a reward, I’m off to part 3 of the Kailey and Marty Summer Concert Series on the Jersey Shore to see Incubus and to frolic on another New England beach for a few days.
Another opportunity to slow down.
To enjoy my favorite time of year. And my own aliveness.
