Quogue August 22, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Depression, In A Family Way , 2 comments10 points to the person who can correctly pronounce the title, 5 bonus points if you can name the exact location!
We spent the weekend on Long Island. Some people know, others don’t, that Jay and I lived on Long Island for 7 years. For the first 3 years, we didn’t even know each other. I was a bright eyed, bushy tailed undergrad and he was starting his PhD work after taking a year in Israel. We both bemoaned the fact that Long Island was so hard to get off of. You are surrounded by ocean on 3 sides and Manhattan on the other!
Jay’s brother, Lee*, has a house in Southampton. Lee is a real estate broker in Manhattan. In truth, he owns a real estate agency with his partner. They have purchased various rental properties across the US east and this house in the Hamptons was the first. They just finished the renovations. Have you ever looked in the Potter Barn Catalog? Or Restoration Hardware? Yes, that is what their place looks like. Amazing.
The third brother in the family, Keith, lives in Seattle. He is the least understood, in my opinion. I don’t understand him at all. Keith and family (2 boys, 12 and 7) came out for a vacation. Since Jay was coming back from Europe, he arranged to fly into JFK, so we could visit Keith and the cousins while they are on the East Coast. At first, Keith didn’t want us there. Go figure. We are FAMILY and we only see them once every year if even and I would like the kids to KNOW each other…UGH. He thought we would be in the way. ass.
So, on Saturday morning, I gathered the girls, turned on the DVD player and we drove down to New London Ct where we (barely) caught the Ferry to Orient Point, Long Island. The girls did great on the boat and seeing the ocean again did wonders for me. You see, my soul is somehow attached to the ocean. Not lakes, not water, but OCEANS. I don’t claim to understand it, but there is something that says my soul is right when I get a chance to see the waves, to smell the salt, to BE with the ocean.
A quick drive around to the South Fork and we were there! We later met Jay at the hotel (further west) and had a great get together there. We spent time swimming and beaching and family stuff. The younger cousins got along great while the oldest was a pre-teen.
It was nice to be back on Long Island. The family stuff was stressful, mostly because of Keith and his wife. They are very narrow in their thinking and then get upset when people don’t want to be near them. Go figure. I laughed passing the great names of places… Yaphank (yap-ank), Patachogue (Patch-chog)
Stony Brook (stony brook),
There was a time I didn’t know how to pronounce them, but now they are second nature. Even all of the landscape was comforting to me, even though we have lived in Boston longer than we ever lived on Long Island.
I think it was a great break from life here. I enjoyed it and I think it was quite calming to be there.
Sometimes, we all need to go back somewhere just to enjoy what we missed when we wanted to leave there.
Bonus photo: Soleil and I at the Long Island Duck…
