Returning to the Atlantic

Writing about the ocean, I've learned, is kind of like writing about love. It's easy to fall into the realm of cliche and melancholic overstatement. But for those of you who've been reading these posts, you know I don't mind veering into that lane every now and then, so if I do here, I know you'll forgive me.

I arrived yesterday afternoon here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for the 23rd Annual At-Risk Youth Forum, where I've been lucky enough to be accepted as a presenter. As I drove closer to the resort hotel where the conference is being held, an awestruck sensation came over me. Resorts have this other-worldly feel, as if they don't quite exist on the same plane as the rest of life, and they don't. The luxury is laid out before you -- the heated pool, the athletic facility, the towels.

And the beach. That wide Atlantic beach. There's just nothing like it. Perfect sand and scallop shells, and the waves rolling thunderously in, one after another. They still manage to fascinate people, just as they've done, constantly, incessantly, for thousands and thousands of years. In a way, the tide is the one perpetual motion machine that I can think of.

I like to think of myself as born of the Atlantic. My parents met at a party on Fire Island, New York. They were both working at Young & Rubicam, an advertising agency in Manhattan. He was a copywriter, she was in the art department. They spent all night talking, and fell in love. And not too many years later, they were packing me and my little brother into the back of our station wagon and driving us out for vacations on Long Island. Once we stayed not far from the spot where they fell in love, but the place was too spartan for Mike and me. There was a grocery store, but you had to walk what felt like miles to us and they didn't the kind of crap we enjoyed eating back then. To say that we complained about it would be an understatement. We scratched a message in the sand: "SEND FOOD."

That was the vacation during which my father was called in for some meeting and Y&R sent a sea plane for him. It landed in the bay in front of the house we were renting, and my father pulled up his pants legs and waded over to the plane. We watched the plane take off, and our dog sat on the beach in front of our house, peering up into the sky for a good twenty minutes, cocking his head, first to one side, then the other.

I've had other memorable moments on the Atlantic, like a bonfire in Montauk, and my summer on Cape Cod. Fun with friends in Martha's Vineyard, and an unbelievable Fourth of July party in East Hampton. The Jersey Shore with Jeanette, our last vacation on our own before the birth of our first son, Diego, and Friday night fireworks at Coney Island with the family.

I hadn't realized how much of an impact the Atlantic Ocean has had on my life, or how much I'd missed it in the nearly three years since leaving New York. Now, as I write with the sound of the waves just outside my hotel window, I say to myself that it's been too long, and that I'll need to come back, sooner rather than later.