A Reflection

I'm sitting here on the back deck on the third floor of my favorite place, so far, in the world. A beer in hand, obviously.

This place is a house in the City of Sea Isle, in the region of South Jersey, on a barrier island that literally only exists because nature wants to protect the main land from hurricanes, and in effect, nature.

And oh man, there is something mystical about this place. Something wild, and yes I know this duplex condo was probably erected within the past 30 years.

But its pebble filled backyard is enclosed by a fence, a fence that barely beats back the dense forest from encroaching upon everything we hold civilized.

And this place is quite special to me, for my family has been leasing it for a week at a time since the summer of 2000.

Tonight, it is very blustery.

Usually, I'm here in the Final Quarter of summer, that two week period which only perhaps a person with knowledge and expertise of the Mid Atlantic August, would understand. Yet this is indeed my first experience here in September.

And sitting here, overlooking maybe the last true wilderness that exists in the Northeast, the very southern edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, witnessing in real time a vast inlet, a dark and shallow tidal bay, across which are the headlights of lonely vehicles traversing an equally lonely stretch of the Garden State Parkway, well, I do have some time to reflect.

I reflect on a great summer, this Summer of 2014, one in which I could have never imagined being even somewhat decent.

For I worked a lot, without even a weekend off, yet, I made it work, for me.

It started with a week-long trip to Boston, its middle consisted of many a great conversation and pickups, its end, for me, was the destruction of my favorite bar, Delaney's, on August 25th.

It was, no doubt, glorious.

But when I sit, even for a few seconds, on this deck, here in Sea Isle, and I truly realize who I am and where I come from, well, I guess you could say that memories aren't all they're cracked up to be.

No, they make you immortal.

And now, I choose, to stop being so selfish, and put away this very tablet that I type upon, this literal light pollution that clouds out the natural beauty of the bay side of the Jersey Shore, Sea Isle City, at 2:40am, and all the sounds of crickets and winds blowing around the branches of large trees...

...and just dream.