East Coast Summer Diary, June šš¦Ŗšš¦š
Long summer days on Long Island, a road trip to coastal Massachusetts, abandoning the stove for the grill, working on my pickleball backhand...
When my friend Emily invited us up to her momās beach house in Massachusetts, it was an instant yes. I had never really been as an adult, her mom had just built a stunning home, and a girlās trip sounded like just the thing to ease some work stress and go on a fun, not-too-pricy vacation.
Emily and I lived together in a beach apartment last summer, and since then, Iāve felt closer to her than everā weāve read all the same books, keeping each other updated on each read via lengthy voice note exchange. Our Goodreads accounts are near duplicates of each otherās. She knows how much I love Elin Hilderbrandās novels set in Nantucketā Iāve never been, Iām positively DYING to goā¦
We werenāt able to make it on our visit, so Emily brought Nantucket to me. š„²
When we got in at 2:30 AM (after a nightmarish several hours stuck in traffic in Connecticut), Emilyās basket of regional treats made it all worth it.
While Iāve never been a āblueberry vodkaā type, Emily swore this Triple Eight Nantucket Distillery vodka, infused with blueberries, was to die for. She made me a spritz with the vodka poured on the rocks, a splash of sparkling water, a squeeze of lemon and a sprig of mint, and it was to die for. We drank them all weekend, palms clutching plastic wine goblets full of sparkly purple delight, giggly with glee when we could bring our drinks into the hot tub.
I saved Elin Hilderbrandās final novel set in Nantucket, the newly published Swan Song, for our Massachusetts beach day. Emily handed me a crisp beer from Cisco Brewers on Nantucket and a bag of Nantucket Crispsā the Madaket Sweet Onion flavor, exquisite. I read my Kindle while the waves crashed and I felt positively bubbly.
In Elin Hilderbrandās novels, she writes beautifully of food and of restaurantsā particularly in Blue Bistro, but even more so as a general rule. Iād oft-read about Nantucket restaurant Cru, and their exquisite ācrucumberāā Grey Goose, hand-pressed cucumber juice, sesame syrup, lemon juice and lemon balm. Emily prepared for our arrival by painstakingly preparing all the ingredients. When it came time to drink our crucumbers, I squealed with delight, Emilyās borrowed āNantucketā sweatshirt pulled over my swimsuit and shorts.
We did nothing and everything during our long weekend: hitting the beach, grilling every night, the dining table laden with Meredith Hayden-inspired lobster & tarragon salads, grilled zucchini with tangy, spicy feta, homemade pizzas fired on hot stones on the grill. We played pickleball for what felt like a full day, stopping only to pick up Cranberry Gobblers at a cult-owned bakery. We hot tubbed for hours and then spent the rest of the night in plush, new Parachute robesā a luxury worth noting on its ownā sipping our blueberry vodka concoctions. Mostly, we talked. We talked for hours, for days reallyā we started talking when we got in the car to head up, and we didnāt stop until weād gotten home and closed the doors behind us. We talked about everything under the sun. (Yes, even you!)
Everywhere I looked there were sun-washed wood shingles and hydrangeas. It was a visceral, vivid East Coast experienceā summer is simply not like this in California, where Iām from. Even in on Long Island, where I live these days, thereās a tenor to summer in all its East Coast Glory that eludes even the most soft white sands of Malibu.
We listened to my summer āGirlhoodā playlist all weekend, because at the end of the day, thatās what the entire time felt like: cooking for and cleaning up after each other, watching the new Netflix show about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders into the wee hours, belting to Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter at the top of our lungs. All of us quite different people, woven into the fabric of each otherās girlhood, caring for and tending to each other every second of the way.
I returned home to Long Island, which I had justā almost begrudginglyā started to feel had some real charm of its own, wishing that there were more hydrangeas, and missing the constant chatter of a group of girls. šŖ»
Girlhood (summer version):
Make a Crucumber at homeā¦
Wear a nice sunscreen, always. Do as I say, not as I doā¦ we all got lobster red on Day 1. Iāve been really liking this one for face, from Dune! Itās very on sale right now. If you donāt believe me, see what I texted my mom about it.
Eat as many Nantucket Crisps (Sea Salt & Vinegar) as humanly possible. New goal: I must try the South Wharf Cocktail Sauce and Hummock Hot Honey flavors, both new to me! Revised goal: I must go to the Nantucket Crisps store they just opened on Nantucket!
Have a sleepover with your friends, I donāt care how old you are. Wear robes. Talk about nothing and everything. š¤
Make a version of Meredith Haydenās Lobster Cobb. We just threw together lobster, fresh lettuces and tarragon from the garden and a little blue cheese. The dressing was a simple rosĆ© vinegar, Brightland lemon olive oil, plus a hearty squeeze of a real lemon, honey, salt and pep.
I have quite a few nice things to say about spending your young adulthood in New York City, and quite a few less-than-nice things to say about how I feel about living there now. (See below.) But what this summer has really elucidated for me is that New Yorkā rich in $27 martinis, greasy and delicious smash burgers, 4 AM last calls and a parade of Gen Zāers in unimaginably indecent outfits smushing onto the train to get back to Alphabet City before sunriseā is devoid of so many of the essential human qualities that make for a happy life and happy body. Chief among them: play.
Yes, you certainly can play in NYC! I ran an amateur office kickball league for three years out of desire to play, and thatās where I met my boyfriendā I needed subs and my friend Sophie brought her best friend from high school along to sub. Subs usually had so much fun they came back again and againā many of them are my closest friends today. I looked forward to something, I got experience motivating people before I managed people for real at work, we all felt like a part of something. We met people outside of our tiny neighborhood or work bubbles, and while we were definitely drinking a lot of disgusting Turkeyās Nest margaritas out of styrofoam cups on the field, we didnāt necessarily need the dim lights of a bar to forge relationships or flirtationshipsā we just needed the spirit of play, a willingness to get a little muddy, embarrass oneself, to throw our heads back and laugh. In a world where people feel as though they can only realistically find partnership through a dating app, play is deeply lacking.
This summer has been rich in play, my friends and I joke often about the agenda of the day including āgameplayāā volleyball, playing HORSE in the pool, pickleball practice after school work.
Whatever you think about Ty Haney, she was onto something with the idea that we should all get moving, be ādoing things,ā whether weāre proper athletes or not. A sedentary life is sort of the American condition, and while New Yorkers famously walk everywhere, and I miss my sky-high step count, play is harder to come byā especially as you get older and your social life shrinks from having roommates, to living alone, to living with a partner. Playdates with your friend group in the park tend to dissolve as folks move away, grow more distant, work crazy hours, want to ābed rotā on a Saturdayā¦
It can be done, nurturing play in a big city like NYC. But you sure have to put in the elbow grease to make it happen.
Living at the beach, the play just happens. The whole experience is play. It doesnāt just make my body happyā it makes my mind happy.
The spirit of play is so fleeting as an adult. There is no more knocking on the door of the cul-de-sac: ācan so-and-so come out to play?ā There is no more kick the can or hide and seek. Add in living in a metropolitan city or far from a park or without a backyard, and you have nothing but barrier to entry for employed, childless adults.
I grew up raised by sporty parents who were all about play. My dad would go for a 60 mile bike ride and then weād go play soccer or tennis in the park. We had a badminton net! A trampoline! We were always moving, playing. My parents, who have very high stress entrepreneurial jobs and are in their early 60s, have, until just now, still had me very well beat when it comes to play. Iām starting to look back and wonder when I went from always active and moving to more sedentary and depressed. (I donāt want to necessarily equate those things or be too simplistic about depression, but at the same time, I think we have maybe over-corrected on the political correctness about the correlation between physical health and mental healthā itās kind of an indisputable fact that movement, fresh air, good food have a good impact on mental health in the macro sense. At the very least, even if you canāt admit that more play or more movement might help you, you can admit it likely wonāt hurt you.)
Somewhere, the New York lifestyleā 3 Negronis after work, an important new cacio e pepe restaurant, the return of cigarettes, sitting all dayā kind of defeated play. I lost play. After that, the dominoes started to fall: slowly losing shape, slowly avoiding exercise, slowly not eating healthily, slowly accepting my life sitting in a chair staring into a screen all day. Covid, of course, complicated all those things, so who is to say for certain how related to the loss of play they wereā but Iām brave enough to wager that in my case, at the very least, thereās correlation.
I think play kind of makes life worth living.
Play has returned to my life, and with it a lot of other positive feelings, self-regulation, and delight in what my body can doā¦ why, God, would I ever go back?
Dear reader,
Iāve written relentlessly about the power of summer to transform, about how in my lowest, most challenging moments, I fled to the beach to find some peace, rediscover myself after failure, lick my wounds and start anew.
That was years ago, and a different beach than I call home now, but the sentiment stands: I leave for the beach exhausted, miserable, unhappy in my city life, and within weeks, Iām transformed into a different version of myself, a better version of myself, with better hair, better skin, a stronger body. I leave behind the version of myself that feels pressure to network, to be active in certain circles for the sake of my careerā you couldnāt pay Summer Me to drag my ass to a founder breakfast, rooftop happy hour or co-working day at WeWork.