note: wifi is slow and sketchy, so no photos right now.
When we left New Jersey on October 1st, the trees along the Garden State Parkway were still full of green, and we were both wearing shorts and t-shirts. Because motorhomes are not allowed on New York Parkways because of the low clearances, we skirted the city and took the Tappen-Zee Bridge over the Hudson River, and into Connecticut. We spent one at a state park along a river, just a few miles from a very rocky beach.
The tide was high, and there were so many big rocks and no sand for a beach. But the sounds of the water pulling back over the rocks was mesmerizing.
We spent two nights in Narragansett, a fishing village on the southern tip of Rhode Island. We’d been there 20 years before, when we rented a cottage with Marika’s mom and some of my friends came to visit, just blocks from where we were now camping at the state park. We were just around the corner from a wildlife refuge AND the beach.
It was officially off-season, so it was free to park at the State Beach Day Use Area just a half mile from the campground. A wooden boardwalk that began in the parking lot was covered with drifts of sand as it led over the short dunes and onto the fine, sandy beach.
I took my shoes off and my feet melted into the firm but soft sand. The tide was high so the beach was short, maybe 30 feet to the water, with rocky jetties on both sides, sectioning off the stretch of beach from the wide crescent of sand where a few other people were walking.
I stopped at the edge of the water and watched the low waves, rolling and breaking, then riding toward me. I rolled up my long shorts and took a few steps in. The water was not shockingly cold, so I rolled my shorts up higher and walked in deeper. The splashing was soothing, and I could feel it loosening me, clearing me, cleansing me. I squished my toes in the sand, feeling my weight shift as the water rolled over and under me.
And I had a feeling inside me of home. Of being exactly where I am meant to be, and being who I am meant to be.
And then, of course, I could see how much change and shifting had been happening in the last few days since we left New Jersey, how EVERYTHING was different. And no wonder I didn’t feel grounded. But being there, at the beach, was the perfect medicine.
That night, we got together with a college friend I hadn’t seen since that house rental twenty years ago. She and her husband took us out to dinner and it was so fun to reconnect and hear about the life she is living.
In the morning I woke unsettled and crying, because we were leaving the next day and I needed more beach time. But we couldn’t stay longer because we had a reservation and a vet appointment for Cody in Massachusetts the following day. We spent the day walking along the nearby beaches, and we found a lighthouse and a circle of stones.
We remembered stories about our last time there with Marika’s mom, and we shared our first lobster roll.
That evening I took myself back to the beach with my chair and journal and stayed until it got too chilly.
The next morning, instead of our usual early departure, we went back to the beach and I walked the stretch of sand between the jetties, back and forth, not thinking, just feeling my feet in the sand, watching the white of the water roll over me.
And, then I asked Marika to go home and get Cody, to bring him to the beach since there were no people there. And she did. And he romped and ran, and seeing him, so happy, filled me with a lightness.
We drove a short two hours to our campsite west of Boston, where we were staying for a full week, to explore the area. It was a private park in the tall, dark trees that hadn’t yet started to color. I cried most of the next two days, feeling disoriented with myself. I wasn’t interested in doing anything, even though there were so many places I had been very excited to visit.
I did fine at the vet, but then I had high-level anxiety about giving Cody his new medications, even though I’m usually the go-to person for his care. It was like I was watching myself from outside of myself, all tense and agitated, and flailing at the same time. Smoking helped with the anxiety, but I still didn’t want to go anywhere. So I just sat with my Facebook feed, and the TV, and cried. I talked with Marika, but I also said some things that were hurtful, and that made things more uncomfortable.
And then I did what I invite my clients to do. I walked in nature. I focused on my breathing. I found ways to appreciate the trees instead of resenting them.
And I gave myself permission to not have to be a tourist every day. That this is a mix of vacation and living. Rest and flow. Do and Be.
Of course.
But when we’re in the middle of our own stuff, we can’t see it. We lose our balance, we get stuck in our head, and we forget the simplest ways back to our heart.
Marika shared that she was also not feeling like doing something every day. And so we took another day at home, and then we were ready to go out into the world. We spent several days visiting Lowell, Massachusetts, home of writer, Jack Kerouac, and also the Industrial Revolution.
We toured the Boote Cotton Mills Museum, and the Quilt Museum (which was more like a gallery with an $8.00 admission charge), and checked out the artist studios in a converted textile factory.
And we got together again with my college friend at an apple picking farm. And yes, Marika baked two apple pies.
We walked around Thoreau’s Walden Pond on the last warm and sunny day of the season. People were on the beach and even swimming in the pond. We each walked at our own pace, then met up for a picnic lunch in the shade.
And one morning we went to the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge and followed a group of preschoolers, dressed as monarch butterflies. They were flying to Mexico for the winter. At the end of the trail they were greeted by Mexican music and teachers wearing sombreros and colorful ponchos.
As we drove along the winding New England roads, we oohed and ahhed at the pops of red and orange leaves, then whole trees, glowing among the greens.
Many campgrounds in New England close after the Columbus Day weekend, but we found one in southern Maine, just south of Kennebunk, where another college friend lives. It was in a grove of changing trees, along a small river, and close to several beaches.
We met my friend for steamed lobsters at the famous Nunan’s Lobster Shack, and reminisced about the apple pie we made for a Spanish class homework assignment. We sent her home with one of Marika’s pies, with a sticky note: pastel de manzana.
We visited the nearby Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, and bought fresh steamed lobsters from a local lobster pound. We walked along the rocky Maine coastline, and went shopping at a local department store for ear warmers and long sleeved t-shirts, in preparation for the coming cold.
And then I felt stuck again. We didn’t have reservations or a definitive route after Maine, though we had been planning to go through Vermont to upstate New York, to visit Cornell’s Ornithology Lab in Ithaca, and then head to Hawk Mountain for migration.
I was watching the daily foliage map and the temperatures, but I wasn’t feeling the pull to be in the mountains. I asked Marika to please help me figure out where we were heading.
I asked her, what do you want more of, and we both agreed we’d rather stay on the coast, in the sun, out of the forests and mountains, and that we could enjoy the changing leaves wherever we were.
But I had exhausted my resources and couldn’t find anything open, so I asked her to look. Somehow, she found a state park campground on the beach in New Hampshire that was open through the end of October.
We drove less than an hour south to our campsite, right at the confluence of the Hampton River and the Atlantic Ocean.
A friend said that, wherever two bodies of water meet, it is a Sacred Source. And I have been feeling it. I am breathing deeper, my mind is looser, and I’m aware of all kinds of letting go.
Without my Mac business, I’ve been wondering what my purpose is now, what will I do with my time and attention, and how I will get my feel-goods. I asked Marika what her intention was every morning, and she said, “To have a good time.”
I’m gonna try that.
We’re here until next Tuesday, and then we are heading back to the campground near the beach in Narragansett where it will be slightly warmer, and still in the sun. And it’s on the way back to New Jersey, where we are due for RV repairs at the end of the month. I’m a little disappointed that I won’t be able to fill in New York and Vermont on our state sticker map, but I’m OK with it.
Because I am so grateful to be in this place. I’m loving the solitude of my several times a day beach walks, and the sky has been glorious. It’s been a bit cold and windy, but I’ve got my ear warmers and layers, and the views are spectacular.
