Beach or Mountains?

 RHYS BOWEN: I’ve just come back from two weeks on the beach in San Diego. Absolutely heavenly, (apart from five family members coming down with Covid, one after the other, necessitating confinement to various parts of the house we were renting, masks and eating outside. I find that beach time is something absolutely necessary for my sanity and peace of mind. Walking barefoot on warm sand while looking for shells, standing at the edge of the waves as they lap over my feet, sitting on the sand and running it through my fingers, or just watching the waves all sooth my soul.

When I am in and around water I feel truly at home. This is strange because I grew up in chilly England where the water is usually too cold for swimming and  beaches usually windswept. We often went to Wales and one year my father and I made a bet that we’d swim every day of the vacation. This involved driving the car onto the beach, shedding outer layers while still in the car, then sprinting to the water, gasping with shock as we dove in, sprinting out and back through the waves and then rushing back to the car, teeth chattering.  We did it but I can;t say it was fun.

But these days I love every minute of beach time. Gliding over the surface in my kayak, as the paddle dips effortlessly into smooth water, boogie boarding when the day is warm enough and the ocean not too rough or even snorkeling are all perfect for me. I was never really taught to swim but the moment I put fins on I became a mer-person. When I snorkel on coral reefs I lose all sense of time and place. I am fully engaged with the sea life around me, sometimes I little too fully. Once, in Grand Cayman, I followed the reef out, never looking up, not hearing John yelling that I was going too far. When I finally did look out the shoreline looked as if someone had drawn it with a pencil. I was really, really far out and there was nobody or nothing in sight. Just me and smooth ocean. Then it occurred to me that if a shark took me nobody would even see.  I made it safely back to shore but I have been a tad more careful since then.

I wonder what it is about the sea that draws us so much. In England lots of people drive to the seaside, then sit in their cars watching the waves. I too love to watch the waves at sunset, preferably with a glass of wine in my hand. Why are we so fascinated?  Is it something primeval, reminding us that we all originally came from the sea billions of years ago? 

Are you a beach person or do you prefer the mountains, or maybe you’re a city girl? What is your ideal vacation?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Water girl here, by inclination, geography and astrological sign. I live by a river, I’m a half hour’s drive from the ocean and I have a dear friend with a lakehouse (thanks, Celia!) Water - seeing it, being in it, hearing it - puts me in my happy place. 

One of the things I love about my pre-knee-replacement PT is that it’s done in a pool! This may be the first time I’ve ever been eager to go to physical therapy and disappointed when it’s done. Forty minutes exercising in that pool makes my whole day.

JENN McKINLAY: Beach, lake, river - even though I’m a fire sign, I love the water. I grew up alongside a river, a lake, and then the ocean in CT. The only reason I can survive in AZ is the time I spend at our beach cottage in Nova Scotia and our annual trip to San Diego. Also, we have a swimming pool. Gotta have water. That being said, I do love the mountains, but water is vacation for me. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Give me water, too. Among my fondest memories are body surfing in Malibu. And I love pools though I’m a terrible swimmer. Hold the boats. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Beach beach beach. A big umbrella, a little back chair, the pelicans skimming over the water, a view of the vast uninterrupted horizon, a book, and only the sound of the waves. 

(I am not fond of the mountains, except from an airplane.) 

LUCY BURDETTE: count me in as a beach person too, although I’d say it’s more water than beach. Even though I am a Capricorn and deeply rooted to the earth! Our grandkids were here this past week, and they never wanted to get out of the water, spending hours in the Long Island sound and then transferring to a neighbor’s pool as soon as they got home. I am sure they will grow up being beach people. When I went off on a solo adventure after college, I had been planning to land in Boulder, Colorado. But I remember so clearly feeling that the mountains made me claustrophobic.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Beach, here, too! I find the ocean incredibly soothing and love to be around water of any kind. Mountains, not so much. I understand that they're beautiful, but they just don't strike that chord with me. But give me the gentle rolling hills of southern England and I might even give up the beach...

The Nose Knows

INGRID THOFT

The other night I was cooking chicken stir-fry with a sweet and sour sauce when I was hit with a wave of nostalgia.  I flash backed to the months I lived in London a couple of years after graduating from college and the small kitchen in the basement-level flat.  What brought me back?  The scent of the sweet and sour sauce smelled like a Tesco meal I often heated up in that little flat.  Twenty-three years later and almost 5,000 miles away, I was right back there, prepping my meal before plopping down in front of the telly.

It's believed that scent triggers memory more than any of the other senses, but it's still amazing, and even a little jarring, when it does.  My dinner prep prompted me to react on other scents that have hit  my olfactory bulb and lit up my amygdala and hippocampus. 

Palmolive dish washing liquid reminds me of my paternal grandmother's kitchen in Montana.  I can never quite believe this because I was only in that kitchen a handful of times in my childhood.  The formula has changed over the years, and the memory is not as strong, but the memory of that initial scent recognition remains with me to this day.

Oil of Olay:  Yes, I know it's Olay now, but when I first smelled it on my mom, Oil was part of the name.  A couple of months ago, I was staying with my aunt, and she happened to walk by the open bathroom while I was applying Olay.  She stopped and came back to the doorway to ask if I was using Oil of Olay.  In turns out that her mother used the lotion, too, (is there anyone who hasn't) and catching the scent on the air brought her mother back to her.

When my husband and I go for walks along Puget Sound, the briny smell of the sea instantly transports me to my hometown, Marblehead, MA on the opposite side of the country.  The tang of salty air is so intertwined with my childhood, I can't imagine one without the other.

What about you?  What scents live in your memory?

On summer's end

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. ~Sam Keen

JAN: I biked down to South Beach this morning to get my last glimpse of the ocean before heading home. And now I'm laundering beach towels and packing up coolers with all the windows and doors open so I can get my fill of sea breezes.

And you know what I feel? Relief.

I loved the crystal clear days, the strong sun, the stars at night. But now? Enough of that.

How can I focus on the right name for a character or the clearest definition if all I want to do is get on my bike and ride to the beach? How can I puzzle out a workable plot when someone needs a fourth for doubles on a beautiful day? Clearly to get anything done, I need a chill outside, lots of clouds, and preferably a downpour.

In fact, I do my best writing between January and March just because the weather is so bad. Obviously, I have issues with self-discipline -- I've had to remove Solitaire from every computer I've ever had. I also get bored easily, have little tolerance for routine, and need a change in seasons just so I don't have to eat barbequed food for another eight months.

So it could just be me, but does anyone else look forward to cold weather for its positive effect on productivity?.

ROBERTA: Funny that you're so patient with slogging through tedious or difficult reading, Jan! You saw with Friday's post how much I'll regret the end of the summer produce season. (that's me, eating first!) We had to pull our cucumber plants out, and the zucchini, and the beans are looking peaked. And like Hallie, I hate winter. The thing that bothers me even more than the cold is the light. Or lack of it, I should say. It gets dark here in Connecticut by 4:30 in the worst part of the season. And that makes me feel like hibernating, not writing.

HALLIE: So THAT'S why I haven't gotten but a piddling amount of my new book written for the last three months!

For me, end of summer means college starts and my husband goes back to work. Which is one fewer distraction in the house but no one to hang out with at lunch. The worst thing about summer ending is winter is not far off. I hate hate hate winter. Hate ice, hate snow, hate being cold cold cold.

Ro: Summer started late for me and in the past few years it's ended late. In September I rent a house in Wellfleet. Most of the other renters and tourists have gone home and I get to pretend that I live in a small town with a general store that just happens to have a beach outside. The restaurants start to close and as the days go by there a fewer and fewer people on the road and on the beach. It's wonderful. I finished my first book at the house so it will always be special to me.For me the worst thing about the summer ending is that everything else is going to come so fast...Bouchercon, Crimebake, holidays, then the conferences start...aaayyyy!!

HANK: A box arrived at our porch in mid-July. Usually I'm the one who orders things, but I wasn't expecting a parcel. My husband said--oh, this is a surprise for us. Huh.

Inside was a turquoise blue two-person swimming pool float. Like a floating double chaise, where the two people are facing each other as they float. It's perfect for reading, and even has little spaces that are just the size of a diet coke bottle. Heaven.

All my vacation, 17 wonderful days from mid August til Labor Day, I'd write in the morning, we'd have lunch by the pool, then I'd come back in and write til 4. Then from 4 to 6--floating and reading.

Today, we're putting our float away. (After the football game, Jonathan says.)

Sigh. My white skirt is looking tired. Gin and tonics seem a little too chilly. My bathing suit is hanging on the shower rack, and hasn't budged for a week. We cook inside. Transition is transitioning.

But the dahlias are still blooming like mad. And the air is clear and dry. And I don't have to face a new math teacher or clique of classmates. I like it.

JAN: Oh dear, Hank. Now you're making me miss summer, when I was so determined to do away with it. But I must remind myself that the swimming pool float would be useless to me -- what without the pool. And of course, as you remind me, Patriots are on this afternoon -- and although I don't watch football -- I do make nachos at halftime. A perfect transition!