For the last week or so, I have found myself stumbling for precision when people ask why our family repeatedly vacations at the particular beach town we love, which is Stone Harbor, NJ. If you’ve never heard of it, you might know of Cape May, and Stone Harbor is on a 7-mile-long barrier island about 30 miles north of Cape May. All of this is well south of the Jersey Shore made infamous by Snooki and friends.
Stone Harbor’s pull has its roots in family. My parents came to like the place when I was still a kid, and when my daughters were young we started claiming it for ourselves. It’s a pretty little getaway of no high-rises or superstores but lots of boutiques and sweet shops, ice cream parlors, coffee shops and a putt-putt golf course or two. A big aqua water tower is its statue of liberty, declaring the soft sand beach a stress-free zone. At the five-and-dime, they used to sell hermit crabs as pets. I’m glad they don’t anymore but I’m also glad for the memory of watching them with my brothers in days of yore.
I could go on, but you probably have your own “happy place,” as they say. At least I hope you do. And anyway, there’s nothing I could tell you about Stone Harbor that would get us any closer to explaining why we drive 500 miles each way almost every summer to answer the call of this particular town. There’s a way in which I feel I was born here, which I decidedly was not. And there’s a way I feel that every time we visit, we drop new coins in a piggybank that saves our memories as life marches on. Things change, but the ocean is always here and infinite. We return to the surfside a little more seasoned, further ripened by time, but we get to play in the sand all the same.
I love it here because here is where we keep staking our metaphoric umbrella. We might have made our place Cape Cod or a lodge in the Poconos, perhaps; the Rockies or Mackinac Island. But here we come to gather together, the “us” we are today as well as everyone we used to be, used to know, used to love and still do.
This is the best I can do. I mean, literally the best.
About the Art
I returned to my roots this week, making sketchbook pages to remember this visit. At top: Coffee Talk is famous for being a place where Taylor Swift used to sing and play as a kid, but I love it for other reasons. Below are a couple more. Ink and watercolor in a Hand Book watercolor journal.
Words and art both lovely, Karen. Makes me miss the ocean! I trust you have read the novel about an octopus,Remarkably Bright Creatures. It's a joy.
You explained so beautifully (and compellingly!) why you and your family have returned to the same vacation spot year after year. There are any number of special places I dream of visiting again, but the call of the unexplored calls me more urgently every time. And - I've never been disappointed. Bottom line, we are so fortunate to be able to spend time away. No matter how near or far, I think a change of scenery is a precious rejuvenation.