the beach

Inland

People that build their houses inland,

People that buy a plot of ground

Shaped like a house, and build a house there,

Far from the sea-board, far from the sound

Of water sucking the hollow ledges,

Tons of water striking the shore --

What do they long for, as I long for

One salt smell of the sea once more?

People the waves have not awakened,

Spanking the boats at the harbor's head,

What do they long for, as I long for, --

Starting up in my inland bed,

Beating the narrow walls, and finding

Neither a window nor a door,

Screaming to God for death by drowning --

One salt taste of the sea once more?

-- Edna St Vincent Millay

It had been over a year. I mean, honestly, how does my family expect me to function?? The beach. The coast. The sea. The water. Finally.

We headed out camping – in the van! First time riding in it not pregnant. No cat this time, but that baby guy came along. Seems we've reconfigured our family just a little since the last van adventures.

Rhys meets the pop-up

We went to Connecticut – Long Island Sound. Hammanesett State Beach to be exact. I did not bring my camera. It wasn't purposeful, just forgot. So, no scrolling shots of the boys frolicking in the waves. A few pictures from Mike's phone, though.

cool sky

phone case in flight

We were trying to pick a beach with decent camping options that wasn't too terribly far. This one was under 2 hours. Except that we left with an awake, crabby Rhys and it turned into a very noisy and stressful 2 ½.

I wasn't sure we were making it, in more ways than one. It was one of those times you are pretty sure the folks at Google Maps were just bored (No, no GPS) -- up this road, down this hill, turn, turn, do the hokey pokey. It did not feel like we were at all approaching the coast. Small streets of greenery and loads of low rock walls so quintessentially New England that at any moment I figured Robert Frost was going to jump the hell out of the woods and point down one fork of the road. “It'll make all the difference!” he'd call after our camper van, his hands cupped around his mouth to be heard over the roar of the VW engine before waving us adieu.

But then, finally, there it was. The end of land. I let out a little inadvertent gasp when I saw it. And, stumbling out of the van, pretty nearly broke down and wept at the smell of the salt air.

These are not west coast beaches, of course. But they are beaches and the beaches of my youth – the ones with miles of sand to walk, warmish water, oyster and welch shells deposited in long lines. It was familiar for sure.

I kept driving past the spot for our campsite confused – according to the map it should be there, but no parking spot, no firepit, nothing there. Then I found out you rent the firepit (lame) and you just park on the grass wherever the hell you feel like it. In California, this would never fly. Complete anathema. First of all, there would never be so much freaking grass, and if there were grass, you sure as hell wouldn't drive all over it. The presence of grass would mean someone worked really, really hard to make it green and since there is actually no water to maintain it, you have to respect that it's there at all. Here, of course, the flipping state song of Massachusetts is the lawn mower.

There is an odd conundrum about space and the coasts. In CA, there is so much land, but everyone is shoved into tiny, expensive premium spots that they fence off. In the northeast, there are tons more people and less land, but everyone has huge yards, separated by maybe a line of bushes if anything. (This set up could partially explain why people felt the need to constantly walk right through the middle of our site while we were there, while the baby was trying to nap etc. It didn't sit well.)

Like everything done with kids as opposed to what we'd do “back in the day,” the beach was different. I went later than I wanted to, left earlier. Isaac would have eaten sand and slept in the beach roses of course, but his brother was another story.

On our 10-minute trek to the beach multiple times a day, we'd pass the closest campsite to the water (our own spot carefully chosen for the shade), which besides being steps from the sand, had no shade, no character, and suffered the constant stream of people walking and biking past their tents which they'd pitched inches from the road. Why would they put them there? I wondered.

“Eh, they are probably a couple of 20-somethings and just hungover anyway,” Mike comments.

I look around at the general demographic of that section of the campsite – its RVs with satellite dishes, its occupants' grey hair blowing in the breeze over their lounge chairs – and am dubious. However, on our return, another nap on the horizon for Mr Rhys, we see two guys roughly 25 years old shuffling around a fire in plaid pajama bottoms. One of them is smelling something he's about to eat, the other is shooting Nerf arrows from a kid-sized plastic bow. Bingo. Husband-guy nailed this one.

“Those guys are awesome,” Mike says, perhaps a touch wistfully, as our family crew saunters past.

Detour: Howling in The Van™

I've started to wonder what our trip would look like to the outside viewer if it were, for example, a reality TV show.

There'd be a lot of shots of the scene out the window from behind my head and just off center to the left. Lots of traffic cones. Lots of red rocks, replaced by grass now. So much grass. “Mowing Ahead” the signs along the highway say. I've started to wonder just how many people are kept employed by the fertile fields of green swords.

There'd be no soundtrack in our reality show since we have had virtually no music. Creeping up on 5,000 miles – number of musical hours might hit four if we're lucky, but only because John in Leesburg, VA hooked us up with some cassettes. Yes, I said cassettes. The van, might I remind you, is 30 years old – it has a cassette player, and only a cassette player. We had a sucky MP3 player and an even suckier hook up to try to get some tunes going and it usually didn't work. The precious battery life of laptops was reserved for other things, and Mike's attempt at a car charger for them almost set my son on fire somewhere left of the Mississippi. 

MP3 player/converter connection. Can I please just remind you that my husband is an engineer...

Between Monterey, CA and Leesburg, VA, our only tape was one randomly left in the van – a homemade compilation called “AIDS Ride 70s.” Any guesses at how many times you have to hear “I Will Survive” before you have zero will to survive?

One through line to our show would have to be Isaac in the gift shops of America. Isaac started the trip with his own spending money. It was money his grandparents had given him over time, tucked in Easter cards and such, plus change he'd amassed, etc. It added up to a pretty impressive sum and we told him he was free to use it on souvenirs along the way. Naturally, what I had in mind was after he'd fallen head over heels in love with some place or event, he'd just have to have a small momento – a magnet, or a little piece of petrified wood. Instead, my son walked through some of the country's greatest landmarks asking “Does this place have a gift shop?” Then proceeded to find a truck to buy. Taos: Sandpaintings? Turquoise crafts? Handthrown pottery? Wrong! Mailtruck. Carnegie Museum of Natural History: Dinosaur skeleton? Book on Ancient Egypt? Try a matchbox of a pickup towing an ATV.

And the port o' potty. That would be big. Oh, didn't I mention the port o' potty before? Must have slipped my mind. By day, an innocent plastic footstool; by night, an ugly necessity for the preggo who must pee every 10 seconds, and the boy, when it suits him. Mike, being superior to the other two members of his family in every way, does not use the port o' potty, though in a cruel twist in the hierarchy, he must empty it. There would be the scenes of Isaac almost tipping it over, the ones of Mike dragging the port o' potty bag to the campsite dumpsters; the ones of everyone's facial contortions the time we left it in the hot van for a week while staying elsewhere and then opened it once again. Is this getting too real yet?

In our reality show, which might be called, The Van™ (As in, “I'm goin' across the country in The Van, Bitches!”), I'd have to get in the confessional and talk about how many books I brought with me that I haven't cracked. Some of them I brought under the impression that I would read parts of them and use them to write broadly-based, witty commentaries on human foibles. I brought things like Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Not that I read either of these things on any regular or comprehensive basis, but I thought they'd be good for quotations and springboard material.

Ultimately, however, when I was hot, and bellified, and didn't have lots of open thinking time, I did not reach for the boys of generation Beat. I reached instead for Toni Morrison and her complex worlds of turn of the century African-American women. Who can explain this, except that boys are smelly and have cooties and Toni Morrison, when asked what book she'd bring to a deserted island, responded that she'd bring blank paper and write her own, kicks the hippie asses of Kerouac and Ginsberg combined.

Nonetheless, we have the Howl bumpersticker on the van. For those who don't know, Howl is the name of a book-length poem by Ginsberg that Lawrence Ferlinghetti (poet and founder of San Francisco's City Lights Books) published in 1957, only to be brought up on charges of obscenity from which he was later found not guilty. A recent movie called “Howl” explored the trial and some of Ginsberg's life. I would recommend it, if for nothing else the peek into 1950s American politics, though I found the whole movie interesting. City Lights is super way cool, and often a peek into current American politics.

I wrote a poem about the famous quote of Ginsberg's,“First thought, best thought” - a sentiment which 1) he knew damn well was bullshit when he said it (you should see the drafts of Howl...) and 2) has caused me great distress in working with young poets who get all starry-eyed at the mention of anything connected to the Beats and have been known to insist that their own crap verse is just perfect without any revision because, well, just look at what Ginsberg said!

While grateful to the Beats for putting down some groundwork for poetic movements, I maintain a healthy skepticism about their poetry and their general sense of craft. You can read a review I did of Diane DiPrima's Memoirs of a Beatnik here. (There also used to be an audio link, but I don't think it works anymore.) Or maybe my skepticism is aimed at the new generation of Beat worshippers. Anyhoo...

My poem (called “Redemption”) begins like this:

Damn you, Ginsberg, for ever saying it. / Damn your whole generation of social rebels / and jazzy-improv lyricists.

Later in the poem I suggest he perhaps come back from the other side for a couple days and recant, since surely eternal meditation must have changed his mind...

You could call a press conference, / broadcasting from City Lights, / Ferlinghetti seated at the table beside you, / copies of Howl piled like flapjacks and crowds/ craning to see.

Tell them you take it all back. / Tell them the angels set you straight / and you’re here to spread the word. / Explain how, besides, you’d never advocate / doing the Times crossword in pen. / Comb your beard with your fingers, well-up / for the cameras, release your flock, / Shepherd Ginsberg, to their imperfect / first thoughts, to wander home / stunned and free / to bleed all over their manuscripts, /

rivers of ink...

Who am I kidding? Poetry and reality TV? That would never fly, although those Beats had an awful lot of sex.

We still need a name for the van – please send your suggestions!