Confirming the ocean is still healing

I think I'd just forgotten.

I’m rushing to catch the C train at the 34th Street subway stop as my hair sticks to my back and sweat stains begin to form on my white t-shirt. It’s nearly 7:00 pm and I’ve texted the group chat that I’m just now leaving work.

Anne: ANG why would you not say this earlier I just got to the garage

Me: omg sorry idk i was working

I’m so out of it. My job has been demanding so much of me recently that I haven’t even seen the 20+ text messages I missed, one of them being, “is everyone still good to meet at the parking garage at 7?” I’m disappointed by my tardiness. This is unlike me, and it gives me anxiety to know that I’m making my friends wait for me.

I manage to conjure up three crumpled $1 bills from my abysmal handbag and grab an unprecedented sugar-coated-almond dinner from one of the NUTS4NUTS carts outside of the subway station. I had planned to make a real dinner when I got home, but by now, all the girls are sitting in Anne’s SUV downtown, waiting for me (anxiety omg), so almond dinner on the subway it is.

I’m home by 7:20, and after changing into a new white t-shirt and brushing my teeth to hide any sugar-coated almond evidence, I grab my packed bags and practically run to the parking garage on Crosby Street. I see everyone waiting and rush to open the trunk as

“Wait be careful—”

three black AWAY suitcases come tumbling out of the trunk onto my feet.

“I’ll just hold my bag,” I say, defeated.

I get into the backseat and surprisingly no one comments on my tardiness and everyone is very pleasant. I think they probably understand it wasn’t my choice to be late, and I’m guessing Emily told them not to say anything because she usually gets the brunt of my “i’m so stressed rn” texts.

“Hi,” I say, out of breath, taking my seat next to Emily in the second row.

“HI!” she beams back, immediately putting me at ease. We pull away and begin our drive to Long Beach Island, and although it takes me a few minutes to adjust, I soon forget about the fact that I was dreaming about Excel spreadsheets the night before.

With one hand in the giant bag of Skinny Pop that Emily brought, I feel myself finally relax and have no concept of how long the drive is or whether we’ve been in traffic. All I know is that I’ve been laughing and singing along to the music Sydney’s playing in the front seat, and before I know it, we’re crossing the bridge to Long Beach Island. I recently found a photo of myself as a kid, sitting on Santa’s lap, wearing an LBI sweatshirt. I guess that’s the last time I was here—when I still believed in Santa.

We pass a number of quintessential beach town establishments on our drive down the island, one of them being a little ice cream shop that’s appropriately named “Custard Hut.” The font on the sign looks straight out of SpongeBob SquarePants, and Sydney starts doing impressions of SpongeBob characters in the front seat. I haven’t stopped laughing since we crossed the bridge.

After we pass the Custard Hut, I see a ferris wheel in the distance. We pass a Kohr Brothers ice cream shop on the right, and I giddily squeal, putting both of my hands on the the window—leaving handprints on the glass as if I’m still the kid in the LBI sweatshirt who believes in Santa.

Soon we turn onto Emily’s street, and there’s more squealing (from everyone now). Her family’s home here is a perfect cottage with hydrangeas adorning the front of the house and a porch that’s meant to be used for morning coffee and a book. We walk into the house and the excited screaming continues—her mother has decorated this house immaculately, with light blue walls and cozy furniture and a yellow kitchen complete with a big bowl of lemons. I feel like I’m in a Nancy Meyers film.

As we walk up the stairs to our bedrooms, Emily says, “Angelina, you’ll appreciate this—the house used to be a schoolhouse.” I almost start crying. I can’t think of anything I love more.

Sydney and I share the twin bedroom which we immediately dub “Boys Room,” and it takes me a while to fall asleep because Did I Forget To Send That One Email and What Should I Do For My Birthday Party This Year and I Wonder What Time Everyone Will Wake Up Tomorrow and I Hope I Remembered To Lock My Apartment Door and Wow It’s Kind Of Hot In Here But In A Beachy Way. Slowly but surely, I drift to sleep.

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Every day on the trip, I wake up naturally at 6:30 AM when the sunlight pours into our room. It’s easier to get out of bed here, knowing that the ocean is so close. I creep down the squeaky wooden stairs and sneak out of the house to say hi to the waves and go for a walk. Everyone here says “good morning” when you pass them on the sidewalk, and this energizes me. It gives meaning to my mornings.

We quickly find our groove and make sure that every day we’re BBN (Beach by Noon). Emily shows us her favorite spot for coffee and the bookstore and the theater and the rosebush-covered inn where she wants to get married one day. We ride bikes to the grocery store and point out which Victorian-style homes we want to live in and don’t apply enough sunscreen despite our best efforts. We pet people’s dogs and buy overpriced sandwiches and don’t wear clothes over our bathing suits when we walk home from the beach.

We all agree that we don’t talk when we’re on the beach. (This is probably a hot take to most people, so I’m glad the six of us are on the same page about this.) Beach days are for reading a book cover-to-cover, which is what I do on Friday with Julia Fox’s memoir Down the Drain. The content is heavier than I expected, and I periodically get up to go for beach walks to take myself out of it and call my mom.

After a long beach day, we divide and conquer before dinner—some of us go to the grocery store, while others stay home to shower and start making drinks. As you may have guessed, I’m part of the grocery store group. Emily, Sydney S (we have two Sydneys and we are so lucky), and I drive to the grocery store which is only a few blocks away, so we have time for one Chappell Roan song. We buy a watermelon and ingredients for grilled shrimp skewers and fresh blueberries for my cobbler. New Jersey has the best produce, and every time I come to New Jersey, I make sure to say out loud that New Jersey has the best produce. I pull out my phone and tweet,

every time i’m in new jersey i make it my full personality that i love new jersey

We return to the house with our groceries, and Olivia is appropriately playing Bruce Springsteen (another great entity from New Jersey) on the speaker in the kitchen. After putting the perishables away, I take the cocktail that Sydney S has made for me into the outdoor shower and wash the sunscreen and sand and salt water off my skin. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to take an outdoor shower with a drink and the music of Bruce Springsteen blaring from the kitchen, you understand this is an epiphanic experience. This is actually the American dream.

It feels like we’ve created a new little life here. Even though we’re just one state away from New York, it feels good to be out of the city—especially during a heatwave—and we joke about moving here full time and opening an ice cream shop or a farm stand.

While everyone is outside having spritzes and comparing tan lines (or sunburns), I am alone in the kitchen which is my favorite thing to be. (If this reads like sarcasm, it’s not. I get really nervous when I’m trying to bake and other people are in the kitchen.) I whip up my blueberry cobbler in about 15 minutes and get it into the oven before anyone has even had the chance to realize that I’m making a blueberry cobbler. “It smells so good in here! What is that?” a couple of them say when they pass through to refill their drinks. Success.

Sydney S and I prepare dinner in our big t-shirts with our hair pulled back while Anne and Emily make more cocktails and set the table in their dresses. (Trad wives vs. trophy wives becomes our new joke.) I put Olivia in charge of grilling the shrimp, pineapple, and pepper skewers I’ve prepared. This is the second time this summer that I’ve put her in charge of the grill—it’s because I trust her the most with this job.

Sometimes I wish this was my life. I wish I could read on the beach all day and then come home and make dinner for my friends and eat it outside and walk to get ice cream and sleep with the windows open and wake up and do it all over—but if that were the case, the days wouldn’t feel as special. When I was an intern in New York, I couldn’t wait to move here one day. I couldn’t wait to have everything at my fingertips and be surrounded by creative people and be a part of what feels like the center of the universe. I still feel that way about New York, but sometimes I just want to be the kid in the LBI sweatshirt.

After a nourishing dinner and what I must say is the best blueberry cobbler ever (thank you, NYT Cooking), I propose we walk to the beach. The sun has now set and the sky is a periwinkle shade of gray. We clear the table and put on our sweatshirts to walk a few blocks to the beach, and as we’re approaching the wooden staircase, the largest moon I’ve ever seen starts peeking over the dunes.

“Oh my God, look at the moon!” we all say at once—I’m so glad we decided to go for a walk. We immediately get on Google to discover that this is a Strawberry Moon, and it only coincides with summer solstice about once every 20 years. “What spells should we cast?” I say to the group, half joking. Olivia already has a Strawberry Moon Manifestation pulled up on her phone. I recall the story of a night we were at a bar in the East Village, and a creepy older man approached our group outside, harassing us. Sydney B looked at him and said, “You don’t want to get involved with us. We’re witches.” We told him we were putting a curse on him and he quickly backed away. (I highly recommend this approach—in some cases, it is just as effective as pepper spray.) Recalling this story makes me miss the chaos and the spontaneity of my life in New York, and I think about everything I’m going to do there when I get home.

I fall asleep very quickly that night, drifting off to the sounds of my friends’ laughter echoing through the walls of the house. I hope we can always take trips like this.

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The rest of our weekend is dreamy, but on Sunday morning, it’s time for us to get back to reality. In the car, we sit in the same seats we sat on the drive down, and even though the trip is over, my excited handprints remain on the window. The drive back to the city flies by, and I’m happy to see the skyline. I always am. (The best part about leaving is coming back.)

Even though it’s only been a few days, I feel different. I feel like I know my friends better—even though I already know them so well. I also feel like I know myself better. I’ve said it before, but sometimes we need to leave what’s familiar in order to discover (or re-discover) what’s important to us. Maybe it was the alone time I had making my cobbler in the kitchen, or maybe it was the 6:30 AM walks to the ocean, or maybe it was the Strawberry Moon; but I feel healed.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Thank you for READING !!!!!! Ahhhhh I have so much to say but mainly just want to say thank you for reading and sharing my strangers essay which was published in Byline this week. (!!!!!)

It was one of my 2024 goals to have an essay from my Substack published in something, and I can’t believe it happened before July.

I hope everyone had an amazing June<3 More fun stuff coming soon xo