My Book. Enough Said #4

Installment four of my book- a bit of background, if you please. Thanks for reading!

I grew up in a small coastal town in New England. Sounds ideal, right? It was if you lived there for about three months out of the year known as June, July and August. The remaining months consisted of a picture poster card brilliance, that people travel to the Northeast to see each year like clockwork. It is all about the bright bursting colors of gold, rusts and vibrant reds. The light in the fall is some call spectacular but in fact, my friend Erika and I have always joked that it is a cheap on-sale light. A blue light special if you will. The harsh dimness of the afternoon fall light is abrasive and only serves to spell out the long winter that stretches out menacingly. Then just as quick, it is nothing but the dark and brooding winter. The black, bare trees reach out starkly into the winter sky. A sky that is stone cold and gray for about four months out of the year. The muddy earth crackles with ice, slicking up the roads and adhering itself to the trees that weighs down their branches as much as the populations souls.

Summer, is the main reason people choose to live in my town. Summer is also the only thing I found redeeming about it. Growing up, I loved the summer in New England more than anything and not just for the Alice Cooper “schools out forever” feeling. Here in my seaside town beautiful, undisturbed beaches with pale yellow sand sprawl out for hundreds of miles. The sand can be so soft that one does not mind searing feeling it gives your feet on a hot July day. Erika and I would bike around town stopping at little stores to grab junk food like Twinkies, Salt & Vinegar potato chips with lime seltzer to be exact, and stare at the natives. I don’t think we ever once stopped to consider the fact that, we ourselves, were natives too. We would park our bikes, sit on a curb or bench and plan and just stew for hours and talk. It was usually about one thing- how we were going to get out of this one horse town. We would while away the long summer days on the beach listening to the seagulls caw while pouring through Seventeen magazine, and hearing the raw deep green sea pounding into the sands in the background. We spent numerous nights camping out on the dunes and building campfires with our friends. We always with one eye on the future like a pinpoint of light that we could see in the distance. Erika and I felt like we had big plans.