I’ve spent this past week down the Shore with my family. Both of my parents are from Philadelphia/South Jersey, and every year of my childhood we made the 2-day trek in the station wagon through Indiana, Ohio and the endless but gorgeous Pennsylvania mountains to pass over the Walt Whitman bridge and into New Jersey.
The first week was spent visiting relatives and the second week we went to the Shore. We most often rented a house or duplex with my aunts and their families.
It is a great thing to be a child down the Shore. Days of eating, riding the waves—in those days we would rent large inflatable rafts and spend hours floating on them or riding the waves cowboy style, finding a good place for ice cream, ogling the surfers and lifeguards and taking outside showers. When the lifeguards left for the day, we flew kites on the beach and came home to meatball and Italian sausage sandwiches made by my Aunt Margie. At night there were epic card games. We rode bikes on the boardwalk before 10 a.m. and played ski ball in the arcades and crashed bumper cars and spun in teacups and hung on the walls of centrifugal force rides laughing our heads off when the bottom dropped out.
Our beds were full of sand by Wednesday no matter how careful we were to wipe off our feet before getting in them. The floors were coated in sand, our towels were full of sand, and after a day in the ocean we’d work to get two tablespoons of sand out of the bottom panel of our bathing suits.
This year, middle-aged, we went decidedly upscale. We rented a large apartment in a Victorian House (the May West) across from the beach in Cape May, known for its Victorian houses, promenade (instead of a boardwalk) and migrating birds. We climbed the lighthouse and learned about the boats sunk offshore during WWII and went to the nature center to learn about the history of the harbor and see Fred the octopus through the glass.
Two of my childhood friends who live in Annapolis and South Jersey came for a deliciously hot and sunny day on the beach. The dolphins are so close to the shore that you can sometimes see their faces up close. And there are so many, my niece described them as “the deer of the sea.” Everyone takes notice every single time they surface.
There has been 
an endless supply of good food in the fridge or in restaurants, and my brother has eaten a cheese steak every day for lunch. After five days of heat and sun, the clouds moved in, and today is the second rainy day. We all have our devices out and I’m learning quite a few new games from my niece. We spent the morning making little animated films.
At night, there were epic games of Rummy Royal. The day we arrived, there was a Fourth of July parade complete with mummers and string bands, kids on bikes and a few classic cars.
It is great to be an adult at the Shore. At the beginning it seemed a bit harsh and noisy, and it was so hot I huddled under the umbrella in my hat and shirt if I wasn’t in the water. But in the water, it feels quite obvious that we came from the sea and that the salty water and tidal rhythms are in our blood. This old house is spacious and high ceilinged and has ample porches for hot mornings, cool nights and rainy days.