In the Summer Swim

The view from the beach house in Connecticut (click on photos to enlarge).
TD and I have had a wonderful summer and have been able to get out of town a lot on the weekends. We used to go to visit my parents in Guilford, Connecticut, taking the train out of Grand Central Station on a Friday night after a week of work. But my mother has passed away and my father has moved to Colorado and the family house was sold so TD and I have gotten creative regarding getting out of town in the summer. Also, we have lovely invitations!

TD and I both like to be near the water, specifically salt water. Ted grew up in Atlantic City and so he spent his childhood on the beach, and my family took summer vacations on the Jersey Shore on Long Beach Island, which is where my great aunt Margie, who lived in Philadelphia, had a summer beach house. We drove to the Jersey Shore from upstate New York, six of us in the station wagon, and there I was introduced to the ocean and the soothing, calming sound of the waves.

Then in college I spent two summers on the island of Martha's Vineyard where I was very close to the ocean. I especially liked the "up island" end of Martha's Vineyard, previously called Gay Head and now called the Indian name Aquinnah, which is very wild and free and feels like the end of the earth to me. I recently came across this photo of my family on the beach there. This is from around 1985 - clockwise from the top, Eric, me, Cynthia, my mother, my father, and Thom.

I love to swim in the ocean and float along. When I'm in the ocean drifting I feel like I'm detached from the earth and earthly concerns and in the care of something greater, floating along in my life on my adventures and all is well. The water is a spiritual place for me.

One weekend in July, Ted's cousins the Pero's invited us to the Jersey Shore for the weekend and we went to the Ocean City beach, which is huge and wide. We spent a fun week there a couple years ago. It's packed with people as far as the eye can see having fun at the beach -

Another weekend, we took a ferry to the Sandy Hook National Park beach in New Jersey. On the boat ride back, this is the view as you return to Manhattan. New York City sparkles - it's like approaching the Emerald City.

Our friends Gary and David invited us for a weekend to their home in Fire Island, Pines -

With the ferries coming and going in and out of the harbor, carrying passengers to and from, the Pines really is a special place -

Southampton was the destination one weekend when we were hosted by my brother Thom and his family. We arrived on Friday afternoon and went promptly to the beach where neighbors had set up camp with billowing umbrellas and sheets for shade. I thought the arrangement looked very "Gerald and Sara Murphy in the South of France."

TD and I took a bike ride into the village to pick up some things. With its high green hedges and majestic trees, Southampton really is a beautiful town.



One weekend we took a subway and a bus to the beach at Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways at the end of Brooklyn, which we had not been to before. Another time, we took the train to Jones Beach. But the best part of the summer was when we rented a beach house in Guilford on the Long Island Sound for a week in August. We came in the back door and walked through the house to find this view of the water out the front (and at the top of this post).

It was a wonderful house and we enjoyed being there on the water so much.

The view was so beautiful that we could barely close our eyes day or night -

To take a break from the sun we drove one day to New Haven to the Yale Center for British Art, which has recently been renovated. In the Long Gallery (pictured below) on the top floor, paintings are now hung and stacked by theme - Landscapes, Portraits, etc., for a dazzling display of English art. It's a jaw-dropping room and offered the perfect combination of a heady dose of art on a sunny beach holiday. Admission is free. Do get to the Yale Center for British Art if you can -

Back on our little seaside point, we enjoyed a small community beach where neighbors of all ages came to sit in the sand and swim out to a floating raft. My brother Eric and his wife Tracy came out to visit.
At night we took walks around the neighborhood -

And tried to commit to memory the beautiful vistas

Summertime is a happy time of travels and get togethers, and I'm always a little wistful when Labor Day comes along. I hope you are have having a wonderful summer too --

A Weekend in Southampton

(click on photos to enlarge)
TD and I went this past weekend to Southampton to visit my brother Thom, his wife Karen, and their son Aaron. We have been invited to their home before and it is always a treat to go there. Especially this past weekend it provided a relaxing respite as TD's beloved mother Edna Dawson passed away two weeks ago in southern New Jersey. They were good buddies and best friends. She was a strong and independent 91-year-old who went to the gym regularly almost until the end, and she will be greatly missed. The funeral was held last Wednesday. You might remember that my mother passed away on Labor Day. In May, my father's last sibling, my aunt Eleanor Noonan passed away in Utica, New York. My aunt Molly recently passed away in Rochester. It's been a lot in a year and a half...

So this excursion on Friday was good timing. Southampton is a beautiful town – all green trees and grey shingle houses and imported cars. On Saturday afternoon, Aaron said to me Let's go for a car ride. He drove the convertible. Stick shift. As we traveled over the back roads, we passed big farms and produce stands. We were heading north, up towards Sag Harbor. Green hills untouched by developers rolled away in the distance. I really didn't know that the Hamptons were so rural. We got up around Sag Harbor and I could view glimpses of blue water through the green trees. We turned around and headed back. As we sped over the country roads it felt like we were flying through heaven.

My clothes for the weekend: blue.

A walk along Main Street in Southampton with its crisp, clean facades.

A riot of Lacroix color exploded out of a flower planter on Main Street.

Real estate + pansies

After dinner at the house TD took a relaxing swim in the pool.

The next day TD and Aaron played kadima on the beach.

TD went swimming in the ocean which is kind of still cold in June but refreshing, and I went in too.

A proper straw hat for a day in the sun.

There was not a cloud in the sky - just fine wisps feathering peacefully past.

The beach is always a healing and restorative place to be.

Big big thanks to our hosts.

Natural Southampton

Perfect beach day (click on photos to enlarge)
Last weekend TD and I went to Southampton to visit my brother Thom and his family. Boy, is that a beautiful corner of the world. The long lanes down to the beach are lined by tall green hedges that reveal peeks of grand old houses. In the village of Southampton, the houses are covered with grey weathered shingles and trimmed in white. Everything is pristine and preserved, picturesque and perfect.
One day I took a bike ride into town. These flower boxes decorate the village streets – I love the combination of the red, white and blue flowers for the Fourth of July.

There were clouds of hydrangeas everywhere.

These are hydrangeas outside of Thom's house. I just love hydrangeas – they are romantically old-fashioned. I think there were hydrangeas at 611.

We took a long bike ride along Meadow Lane which runs along the ocean beach. This is Shinnecock Bay. The landscape reminded me of Martha's Vineyard. It's great that this extremely valuable real estate has not been developed.

A family walked along the little beach there and played with their dog.

Meadow Lane is strung with mansions – Calvin Klein is building a big house there which is right now only a construction site. But this was my favorite house – it looked like an old English stone country cottage smothered with overgrowth.

Further on down Meadow Lane we passed Saint Andrew's Dune Church which is built right on the dunes with the ocean on the other side. It has that similar, charming, English vernacular country architecture. Pretty place to get married.

Later in the day we went to the beach. Spectacular weather.

On Sunday it was a little overcast so we took a car ride through East Hampton to Montauk where we had delicious lobster rolls at a cute and popular restaurant called Lunch. Then we had a quick walk through East Hampton. Here at the Ralph Lauren store, a rainbow of lavender, blue and white hydrangeas welcomed shoppers.

Flowers plus art: White impatiens mixed with modern sculpture at Gallery Valentine.

It was a pretty dreamy weekend, quiet and relaxing. Many thanks to our hosts.
Hope you had a great holiday weekend too.