I go to the beach year round. Now.
I hadn't spent time in the East End since the summer of 1991. In the last twelve months I've been out almost every other, if not every week. I figured out a way to be there, to find a comfort and solace. Not a house or a home, no. Rather, the gift of a peaceful, quiet space, away from the summer crowds, away from the sleazy, creepy, pick-up freaks and their share-houses, away from the oh-so-fabulous people and their ostentations, their dreadful, wretched behaviors.
I go to the country, into the Northwest Woods, on the southern margin of Three Mile Harbor. That's where I stay. I'm lucky. The Savior, lets me come and go. "Mi casa es su casa," he told me, on the day of my heartbreak. He must have sensed something, a kindred spirit. He's family to me, like a brother.
I love the drive out, once I get onto the open expressways, the way my car feels. I love how the rays of the rising and setting sun flash by, and change with the seasons - or the weather. Serenity from a six-speed stick-shift.
I "pack in." My favorite place to shop is Garden of Eden on West 23rd Street. Hard cheeses, sopresata and chorizo, cured olives, Belgian beers, dark roasted coffee. A snack after I pull in, after my shoes crunch across the gravel driveway, and I turn the key, and open the door. "Anybody home?" A big hello and a warm hug.
Sometimes last summer, I barely left the house. I would write all day, go for runs along the hilly back-roads, then returning poolside, unfurl my mat, and stretch. Other times, I would drink wine and laugh with girlfriends who came to stay, go to the occasional tennis match or private party.
The summer sunsets - along the northern perimeter of the southern fork of Long Island. Astonishing.
It's cold now. I return to the city, and the drive is no less exhilarating. I put the car in the garage, walk home to the loft, open the door, and the cats run to greet me. I scratch their ears, and go to the windows. Every now and then, the sky goes crazy, and looking southeast over the rooftops, I think, "This. And then this happens."
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