Jersey shore sunday...

I grew up on a horse farm in Wrightstown, New Jersey. If you’ve never been “out East,” people usually assume that New Jersey is either just New York City sprawl, or they make note of the difference in my accent by stating the dreaded line, “New Joisey?” Which my dad, Pop and I comment, no one out there ever says. Where I’m from, central New Jersey; has beautiful horse farms, and fields of produce that are what gives it the name the “Garden State.” But it also has gigantic cities and houses over 9 million people! Waking up on the farm had some of the best memories I’ve known, but it also came with many other trials. My mom moved out when I was 4. I didn’t want this to matter so much, but it does. The farm was the best and worst of times for me, growing up. The winter mornings were cold, as there was only a kerosene heater that heated our portion of the big house we lived in. The summers were hot, but I loved them. We had windows open and a fan going in each of our rooms to keep the heat at bay. The Shore was only 45 minutes to the east. I loved the Point Pleasant board walk, LBI (Long Beach Island), and the seagulls. I’m not sure anyone else that still lives in Jersey feels the seagulls like I do. Most people equate them to garbage dumps, but to me, their sound is equals to pure satisfaction in my heart. Let me describe, I can close my eyes and imagine laying on a beach towel in the sand, it’s hot, there’s a tiny breeze, when you lay down, you move and squiggle your body around to make a nice even spot to lay in, so you can soak up the sun until you get hot enough to get in the water, the sound of waves, on a busy day, you’re surrounded by lots of people, but still feel as though there is space between you and the next set of towels and chairs, a small plane flies above with a banner 100 feet behind it with black block letters advertising for food, or a special going on at one of the boardwalk businesses, the seagulls fly sparsely above letting out their cry every few seconds, I don’t know why they sooth me? I don’t know why, even now, when I hear them, I feel warmth inside my soul. Their sound brings being “down the shore” to life for me. When I was young, I always dreamed of owning a house down the shore. Not one on the beach. Those were for people in the movies. Just a small home, right next to another one, next to another one. Within walking distance of the boardwalk. With a two-car garage. The color of the darkest navy blue and white in many rooms. With simple seating, but enough beds for at least 25 people…kinda like in grandma’s attic in Ewing. Old quilts that don’t match, cool furniture that also doesn’t match. A small brush with a handle by the front door to get the sand off your feet, except the tiny black sand that never really does come off. The shore is part of what completes me. It lives deep, in each cell; like riding bikes super-fast through the long barn is when the sun goes down, like you didn’t belong to anyone, or riding ponies (Sparky and Rusty) bareback through the woods with my sweet younger cousins, Leah & Dean. Frozen snickers bars at the country club pool, driving with pop on the turnpike to the Meadowlands, the bakery, taking care of the horses at John Calabrese’s farm every morning for almost 6 years, Dreamaire Farm, flat bed stick shift trucks, hay, and fields of broodmares and babies, getting fat on magic-shell with Ryan, Shawnee and Russ, having cream at Talia’s, and me driving around alone trying to get lost in Freehold, but always coming out on a road, saying to myself, “Oh, I know where I am.” The farm didn’t have everything, but everything it had, is in my cells, in my bones, in my being. I will never not be from there. And there, will never not be from me.

~HappyAmy