Long Way from the Atlantic

Being 400 miles away from the shoreline is when I missed the waves and ceaseless salt winds. For many, this isn’t far but I was someone where this was the furthest west I had ever been. I hadn’t grown up by the beaches but I have never been more than hour’s drive from one. I never felt Connecticut as a coastal state, even knowing the history of port cities and different maritime trades. The feeling changed when I went to New York by Lake Ontario and the desire for mild Long Island Sound, warm Nantucket Sound, or the brutal Atlantic Ocean stayed heavy. The idea of a lake beach was so foreign, I still remember the shock of hearing that their beach trip wouldn’t be 5 hours away at shore but in 30 minutes from campus on the lake.

I did give Lake Ontario a chance. It left me more homesick for New England beaches, shocking me that I could miss a region I tried hard to get away from. A freshwater lake with brine in the air and zebra mussel shells littering the sand, it may become a sea away from home with the salinity level increasing by the year. In 2011, the salinity level wasn’t as high and the vague salt scent in the wind still stays with me. There were even herrings gulls, distinct cries carried by those briny winds. This is where I went when I was homesick for Atlantic waters and tried to forget how far above sea level I was. I wasn’t meant to go so far inland and I wish I had known that sooner.

The longer I spent away from the beaches of Massachusetts and Connecticut, the more I wanted to return to them. Gradually, I took my more of my attention to the maritime. I explored again childhood curiosities of marine life and boats. I took my sketchbook and camera to the dunes and littoral zones, sporadically documenting my favored spaces. Sand is permanently in my car, my bags, pockets, and shoes. In these spaces, my thoughts stilled and I could experience as things are without intrusive thoughts tugging at the edges of the moments.

It was a variety of miserable and unfortunate circumstances that turned my time in New York into a nightmare. I did have nice times and met the best people in that state, but I never knew calm without the presence of another person. On the beaches, I live in a state of being as people should. Even the beach on Lake Ontario brought me closer to that state of being, but still I needed to return to the coast.

In my first car, a 1992 Chevy Cavalier, I would drive an hour or 3 to get where I wanted to be. My favorite was the 3 hour drive, getting up early morning to beat the summer crowd to a parking spot and get ahead of hour long traffic jams. In the fall and spring, it was moderate. But winter. Winter I hate but I love the beach in winter. There are hardly any people, and the people there aren’t the tourists or summer people. They wish for the quiet beach, too, and we give distance without wave or nod, as polite people of the Northeast do.

Before and after golden hour, the sun casts a cool tone on the desiccated beach grass, defoliated shrubs, and lazy waves. When the temperature is below freezing, the waves start to slush and slow down - quieting, drawing out of the noisy competition with the cold winds. Unlike 10 years ago, you can now feel the arctic winds joining. The threat of frostbite stays in the air and you wish for a second pair of socks and gloves. But at golden hour, warmth touches the seascape and sandscape. For a time, you see how it could be in late spring and the promise of it brings more hope as you slowly trek through soft substrate and passively register bird calls, the wind rushes dominant. This is the cold coast I returned to, the Atlantic waters in summer reminding us there is cold weather ahead of us and the sun heats skin.

Those same hostile waves are warm and manageable when you retreat from the north. It was on a Florida beach I could step into the full force waves, the biggest calm waves I have swum in. The same waters I could hardly step into bare skin in summer up north I could now float in spring down south. They follow the same patterns and rhythm, with the same backwash and breaks. I would rise and fall as I floated, higher than before and with surprising strength. A given to the people raised here, but a novelty to me. The warmest water I had swum in remain in Nantucket Sound, but the beaches in Miami, Hollywood, and Jupiter gave me cool waters to escape from the hot sun and experience the Atlantic Ocean as I hadn’t before. The waters were clearer, bluer, warmer. But still, this was the same ocean and that connection struck me as profound, grounded when I saw piping plovers on a Florida beach which could have the same ones spotted on Cape Cod, readying for their return to their own summer homes.

A lake is not a bay and it is certainly not the ocean. Knowing Lake Ontario connects to the ocean by way of the St. Lawrence River gives comfort in familiarity; 800 miles long, somehow twice the distance I travelled from Connecticut to Rochester, NY. My appreciation for lakes grew the more they were discussed in environmental classes, but still they couldn’t replace the sounds and ocean of my childhood and adolescent.

It took my 400 miles to return to something I had taken for granted which became my focus and retreat. Whatever allows for processing without the weight of ugly thoughts, I hold onto. I found clarity in scorched sands and arctic flavored winds. Whether the beach is on the Gulf Coast or Maine, it is home. Just as much as I want the beaches and waters to myself, I want to share it. I want to walk on the broad littoral zone, from wrack line to just beyond the low tide waves, showing shells and seaweed beneath us and pointing to the gulls and terns above us. Beyond, we can see the evermoving grass and seaside goldenrod, the marine ducks and seal heads dipping above and below the crests.

One day soon, I will again go by boat to the other sides of barrier beaches; to trek from warm shallows across hot sand to blister cold waves. The liminal is where I am most comfortable, and this is my favorite liminal space.