life's a beach

When you grow up by the sea, you never entirely escape its spell.

Abuela grew up in a small seaside town, the same town where Sylvia Plath spent six early years before moving to tonier suburban digs. They were contemporaries, both children of the Great Depression; while Abuela never met Plath, perhaps they crossed paths at the beach. Plath once said her "childhood landscape was not land, but the end of land - the cold, salt running hills of the Atlantic."

Abuela, too, was forever marked by the proximity and intensity of the ocean. When she married, Abuela moved inland. She spent decades raising a family, working in the city, living the post-war, suburban middle class American dream... but the call of the sea persisted. After she and Abuelo retired, they finally returned to the coast.

Now, Abuela nourishes her watery roots in the same Atlantic salt she knew at my age. And it's my turn to fall under the spell of the sea.









Love you, Abuela! xoxoxo xela