When I think of the ocean, I always think of Ocean City, NJ. If I’d known when I was 13, or 16, or 26, or 46, or 66 that my days summering for a week at the NJ seashore wouldn’t last forever, I wouldn’t have believed it.
For over 50 summers I spent a week reveling in the New Jersey shore. My parents rented a small 2-bedroom cottage beginning when I was 11 years old and from then on, we never looked back. THIS was our summer vacation.
When I was 14 my parents invited my Texan aunt and uncle (my mom’s sister and her very successful husband) and their two children, 15 and 17, to join us. My dad upped the ante to a three-bedroom cottage two blocks from the beach. The eight of us must have been crowded, but I don’t remember caring; we were seldom inside.
I do remember how young and ugly and ungainly I felt. My 15-year-old male cousin, Miles, ignored all of us. He teased my younger brother and didn’t even acknowledge my existence. The older cousin, Sabrina, was a gorgeous teenager with a figure like a movie star, long blonde hair, a pert nose, and a light Southern drawl. The boys on the beach ogled her with longing and lust. I walked with her on the hot sidewalk to get sandwiches for lunch, or into the ocean water for a swim, and I wanted to evaporate into the ocean swells. I was so naïve, so uncool, so …. nothing ….
Sabrina held a transistor radio as she walked, hips rolling to the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun. To this day when I hear that song, I see her beauty sway next to me, a goddess compared to my dull geekiness.
Now? Now Sabrina is a successful wealthy lawyer, stout and aged despite many face lifts. She lives in Manhattan and wants nothing to do with me or my brother or our families. She never married but, in her day, had many lovers.
When I think of the ocean, I always think of Ocean City, NJ and how, over the years, I ripened into the opposite of nothing, swelling with vibrancy and joy and fierceness, just like the sea.
What comes to your mind with this prompt: When I think of …. I always think of ….
roughwighting 
Life is like that. If we could only see our future, we would probably do many things differently, but then it wouldn’t be our future any more.
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We always went to the NJ beach too. It was Wildwood when I was younger and Avalon-Stone Harbor when I was older. There is a magic about the water. I didn’t mature until I was out of high school so yes, I was uncool too!
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An amazing story, Pamela. I’m surprised your cousin doesn’t want to have anything to do with you. I think she would find you fascinating. Maybe the fact that she is stout has something to do with it. When I think of California I think of the drive from Marin County to Stinson Beach. We would take that scenic drive regularly but the sad part was I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road for fear of going over the side. We enjoyed the beach a lot and it became the motivation for building a house on the coast when we had to relocate to Texas for work.
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