Outer Banks | Excitement on the side

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Going Home

Posted on June 18, 2013 | 3 comments

Home. I think about it frequently. I write about being a stay at home mother. I write about making a home for my family.

I grew up in only two houses. Home was a physical and unchanging place for more than twenty years. In the last ten years I have moved more than I had previously in my entire life. In the last five years alone I have moved three times. This house, this home where I am now, we moved while I was pregnant. When we brought Lucy home and our family was complete, I knew we were home for good.

This week I am packing up the car again. I am taking the girls to the beach. Mention to a grocery clerk or an acquaintance “heading to the beach” and they might not even notice the melancholy tone. The beach. The beach is vacation and sunscreen and smiles all around, right? But long ago, the beach was home.

I became a mother at the beach. I brought Emily home at the beach. Home. I miss the sand and the salty air in the morning. I miss the long, flat roads for running. I miss my friends and the seafood and my family.

This week much of my ex-husband’s family will gather at the beach. My family. Waiting on the birth of a new baby we will grill hot dogs and laugh and soak up the sun. Some time this week I will put Lucy in the jogging stroller and I will take a nice long run down Bay Drive. I will turn down Third Street and as I get closer to my turn, my old street, my feet will slow. I will ready myself. And I will run by my old home.

My family is still my family. The beach will still welcome me with the promise of sandy feet and the tight feeling of salt water dried on my skin. The long, flat roads with a cool breeze in the morning will be there. But my home? It isn’t my home anymore.

I hope it is home to someone. I hope there are flowers on the porch and bicycles in the driveway.

3 Comments

Posted in Family

Tagged home, jogging stroller, kill devil hills, Outer Banks, sandy feet, vacation

Day 75: Tuaca anyone?

Posted on February 25, 2011 | 1 comment

Day 75: Today every Book owner is to reserve a table at Gino’s Italian Restaurant for eight o’clock on the 4th of July next year. Phone number: (225) 927-7156 Gino’s. 4542 Bennington, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Open 11am-2pm and 5-10pm Mon-Fri, 5-10:30pm Sat. Closed Sun. MC, VISA, AE, DC, DISC. No checks.

Another one of the book’s challenges that encourages you to screw over a restaurant. I refused the dine and dash and elected not to mess with my pizza man. And I won’t be calling this mom and pop restaurant in Baton Rouge and making a reservation I have no intention of showing up for, not on the 4th of July or on any other day.

I can’t really think about Italian food and the 4th of July without feeling a little wistful. There was a time when I thought I’d spend every 4th of July from now until forever sitting on the beach, feet in the sand, with a belly full of pasta olio, lasagna and sauteéd spinach and mushrooms. Maybe even a spoonful of cannoli filling. We’d walk back across the street from the beach to Lodivichie’s and have a drink with our friends. Em might be falling asleep and I’d scoop her up from the jogging stroller and put her in the buggy that attached to the beach cruiser and head back across the street for home.

Many of my memories of the beach and the time I spent there have faded, both the good ones and the bad. It’s easier that way. Negativity serves no purpose, I simply don’t hang on to things that bring me down. Sadly, the wonderful moments in time, sweet days when Em was teeny and I was navigating the first years of motherhood on no sleep and nothing but pure love, those moments are fading, too.

It was a lifetime ago. July 4th, 2007.