Turn Around Solitary Man

I felt very lucky and very blessed to be sitting in my worn and comfortable beach chair early yesterday morning, breathing in the soft air of Bethany Beach and watching the tide come in as the waves pounded the sand.

 

For me, sun, sand and ocean are the essential elements for getting rid of worrisome and stressful thoughts and filling my inner reserves with hope and gratitude.  It's a winning combination every time I need it.  The beach has never let me down.  Ever.

 

 

 

I was in Bethany Beach this past weekend to help a very good friend sell her beautiful handmade jewelry at an arts festival held annually on the town's boardwalk.   Even though it was after Labor Day, the beach was packed and booming as though it were summer.

 

But early Sunday morning, only a few people were scattered about the beach.

 

We beach people are a different breed.  At a moment's notice, I could go to the beach any time of the year and at any time of the day just to hear the cycle of the ocean's tides and feel the sand between my toes.

 

I watched yesterday roll out as the young families came first to set up their area for the day, carrying chairs, umbrellas, beach toys and coolers.  A horseshoe crab had washed up on the beach, stranded on it back, and some of the parents and children went down to investigate how to push it back to the surf.  Next a few older couples came walking by, some holding hands, some just enjoying a quiet conversation.

 

Then a solitary man came to my part of the beach wearing an orange t-shirt and black shorts.  He looked to be in his twenties and was wearing large earphones over his ears and in each hand he held metal poles with circles on the end that he waved back and forth over the sand.  I've seen these metal detectors before but I never seen someone waving two at the same time and never in the morning.  Usually the metal detector people have only one detector each and walk the beach in the evenings hoping that during the day someone lost a ring or a lot of coins.

 

As I watched Solitary Man, with his head down looking at the sand in search for buried treasure, searching for something expensive lost by another person, I wanted to suggest that he take his headphones off and enjoy the beauty of what surrounded him.

 

I wanted to tell him that instead of looking down at the sand, waving his dueling metal detectors, he could turn around and look out at the glorious Atlantic Ocean and watch the morning sun dance on the rolling waves and listen as the cold salt water swished the sand around his feet.

 

I wanted to say that the time spent looking for stuff in the sand that he thinks is going to make him happy, could instead be spent absorbing the wonders of Mother Nature, the same wonders that draw people to the beach to rejuvenate and refresh their spirits and souls.  After all, it is a known scientific fact that the sound of ocean waves actually alters the wave patterns in the human brain, soothing us into a deeply calm and relaxed state.

 

Happiness is right here Solitary Man, right here at the beach. 

 

And you don't need a metal detector to find it.

 

 

 

Healing Through Lavender

Mother Nature is one smart cookie.

 

She has given us natural remedies for anxiety, stress and other ailments but instead we choose to try and manufacture something that we think will be better.  Something that is usually full of chemicals and ends up causing environmental problems or making us sick.

 

Enter the healing herb of lavender, which is a beautiful and hardy perennial.

 

 

I discovered the healing benefits of lavender a little over a year ago and can't say enough about it.  Smelling lavender immediately calms me.  While on vacation recently in Bethany Beach, DE, I went to the local farmer's market, as I usually do, in search of a lavender vender who was there last year as well as farm fresh tomatoes and corn on the cob. 

 

As I entered the parking lot full of shoppers and tents and tables, I immediately spied a table full of natural products from Lavender Fields, a 5-acre lavender farm in Delaware (www.lavenderfieldsde.com).  I haven't visited the farm in Milton, Delaware but would love to do so.  Lavender Fields is a farm and a cottage store where 37 varieties of lavender are grown that is open from May to November.  One day I intend to check it out.

 

Lavender Fields located in Milton, Delaware

 I loved smelling many of the wonderful lavender products and ended up buying three types of hand made lavender soaps and a small glass vial of lavender oil which I sometimes put on my temples, my wrists and behind my ears to relieve tension or stress.

 

Studies show, and I have found out for myself, that the scent of lavender lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, putting you in a relaxed state.  Here are a few other ideas for taking advantage of lavender's healing and health properties:

 

--use a few drops of lavender oil into your bath water to soak and relax;

 

--use on burns and bites to relieve itch and pain;

 

--apply to skin to repel mosquitoes and other insects;

 

--sprinkle a few drops on a cotton ball by your pillow to help you sleep.

Lavender has been with us since Biblical times yet even today, in our fast-paced world, Mother Nature continues to take care us with the most natural and organic healers.

A Summer Itch

I talked to one of my great friends today on the telephone.  I thought she was at home or running errands but then she said she had to get off the phone because she was getting ready to cross the Bay Bridge. 

As in the Bay Bridge over the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

Ding! Ding! Ding! She's. Going. To. The. Beach!

Right away, I began to feel the symptoms of an incurable condition called "Beach Fever."

My friend's news dovetailed perfectly with the recent warming of the sun in Washington, DC (predicted 82 degrees today!) and turning the calendar to the mojo month of May.  My thoughts of being at the beach have now been kicked into high gear and I know I am off and running and will be like this for the rest of the summer. 

  

Don't You love This Picture?
  Makes You Feel As If You Are There!

 

The past week has found me going on the internet at all times of the day and watching the Bethany Beach live cam so I can gaze at the sand dunes and a bit of the incredible ocean for myself.  I'm pathetic.  I just sit there and stare at the screen for God knows how long as my eyes travel around the screen going from the sand to the water and from the water back to the sand.

When I'm at home, I go into the linen closet and open up the brownish plastic bottle of Coppertone sun screen and smell it over and over again.  It's one of my favorite scents!!  I can't even put into words the colorful flood of memories that fill my brain when I smell Coppertone. 

And then I start to think about and of course start to crave beach food -- pizza, steamed crabs, french fries, lobster.

 

 

 

I am really ridiculous about the whole beach thing! 

It's one of the few places on the planet that totally relaxes me and helps me refill my inner reserves of patience, peace and energy.  When I am at the beach, I am all into my healing zone of reading, relaxing and being entirely off schedule.

I am an incurable beach nut and that's all there is to it!
 

Oh Sandy -- Please Be Kind

 

 

 

 

Let's see...Hurricane Sandy, with all her power and threatening ability to destroy most of everything in her path, is currently working her way up the East Coast ready to hit land somewhere in the metropolitan DC area or thereabouts.

 

The federal government has announced it is shut down for Monday and so is Amtrak, most of the  schools in DC, Maryland and northern Virginia and Metro bus and rail service.

 

Everyone I know has gone to the grocery store, filled up their gas tanks, cleaned out their gutters and stairwells and is bracing for one horrific storm.  My son is being evacated from Yorktown, Va to Richmond and also a friend who lives in Bethany Beach, Delaware is being evacuated inland to safer ground.

 

No one is quite sure what to expect but it looks like it's going to be bad.  Rain is falling right now, not too hard but it is steady.  Based on my experience with other hurricanes coming through this area, I would say it's a sure bet that we lose power.  A survey recently showed that PEPCO is thought to be one of the worst utility company ever in the DC metropolitan area and has been rated as the most hated companies because of its poor service and willingness to raise rates.  So my low expectations say that being without power is will probably be days not hours.

 

Please stay safe everyone!

The Beach Is The Best



Photo By Emily Noonan


My son and I vacation at Bethany Beach, the same beach we have been enjoying since he was a toddler.  It's also the same beach where I vacationed as a child.  This conjures up all sorts of memories for both of us and it gives my son a sense of stability.  We can't imagine going anywhere else. 

The first time we vacationed in Bethany after my husband's death, it was jarring, but we stayed positive and survived.  I had some meltdowns but they were in private.  More importantly, keeping up the vacation tradition gave us confidence to know that we could go to a special place on our own and then get on the other side of the experience and be okay.  It wasn't the way it used to be, but it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be either.

The beach is also a time to catch up with old friends because we always plan to be at the beach when our friends and their children are also vacationing.  Of course we see our friends when we're home but there are less distractions at the beach and conversations are uninterrupted.  All of the children are mostly around my son's age and they all have a great time when they are together.  The group of us have been vacationing in Bethany for so many years it's hard to count.  Everybody gives each other a lot of room so it's not as though we always do everything as a group and it is definitely understood that people are on vacation time.

We love Bethany Beach and tend to do the same things each year.  We just can't resist that magical formula of sun, sand and salt water that continuously mixes together and becomes some kind of relaxation elixir.  There is something heavenly about sitting in your beach chair (under the umbrella, of course) reading a book, listening to the waves hit the beach over and over that is relaxing, refreshing and soothing to the soul.


Photo By Emily Noonan

All of us like to do the same things so it works out very well.  Basically, we hang out on the beach all day (even if it's overcast), read books (trashy and brainy), eat vacation food (think french fries, steamed crabs, pizza, steak and cheese and ice cream), go to Funland (Paratrooper, The Sea Dragon), play putt-putt (Golf Down Under, Lost Treasure) and shop (anywhere within walking distance).  These activities never get boring to us because we don't do a lot of them when we're home.

Photo By Emily Noonan

This year a new restaurant opened called Matt's Fish Camp.  It's located in an old steak and cheese carry-out place near Indian River Inlet.  It doesn't look like the old place at all which was a typical beach carryout place where most of your customers drive up in bathing suits or carry fishing poles and order food that's really great for elevating your blood pressure and raising your cholesterol levels.

We all tried it for lunch and dinner and loved it!  The new place is very nice, has great service and really tasty food.  The decor is simple with tables, booths, white walls and simple ocean photographs.  Plus the prices are reasonable which is a big help in these tight economic times. 



Photo By About My Beaches

But all of this talk about Matt's cracked me up because I think of the old place where Matt's is now located as an inside joke between my husband and I which was known as "white cheese, yellow cheese."  Everytime my husband and I would drive by it, the first one who would see it would say, "white cheese, yellow cheese."  This quirky phrase came about because one afternoon we drove up for steak and cheese subs.  When my turn came, I gave my order to a young girl chewing a big wad of gum behind the counter.  Without missing a beat she said, "Do ya want white cheese or yellah cheese?"  I started laughing and said, "What do you mean?"  With a straight face, she repeated, "Whadda you whant white cheese or yellah cheese on your sub?"

I thought about it for a minute and said "Do you mean Provolone or American cheese?  Then she looked at me and made a weird face.  "No, I mean do ya want white cheese or yellah cheese?"  This is probably one of the reasons I stopped eating steak and cheese subs shortly after this episode.  I decided to answer her in her language and said, "Two with white cheese, please."

Later when my husband was eating his sub, I asked him if he liked his sub with white cheese.  "What are you talking about?  he asked.  I told him about the counter girl inside and he laughed for a really long time.  This "white cheese, yellow cheese" phrase became part of our beach code, one of those unspoken things that you just say to each other and you both get it right away. 



Photo By Emily Noonan

This is not to take anything away from Matt's.  It's definitely a great place and we would recommend it.  This story is more to explain that this summer we discovered a truth which is that places change and people leave us but through it all we find continuity in life's experiences and the sweet memories of those special times.