Catskills where our summer cabin is. I just got back from
the Jersey shore—Ocean Grove and Asbury Park, that perennially edgy beach town, clawing its way back to respectability. The creepy old
Howard Johnson restaurant, built in the early 60’s and made to look like a hokey spaceship, has been renovated with an open bar and palm trees in elephantine-sized wicker pots. The once-abandoned boardwalk that used to have one lone saltwater taffy store is brimming with surf shops and Cuban
restaurants. Stay slightly edgy, is my advice!
Things change—except the need to get away from it all in the pit of steamy summer. Attention to television series,
classes, the hustle in general, turns to nature, sea breezes, fizzy and cold concoctions that can quickly cool. The photos at Idea Farm show our first peaches and Winesaps. Also, my potbellied pig, Thistle, who is an ancient 15 years old and plucky as ever!Are you still trying to write through it all? Or do you tend to take a break from that too—in order to regroup and rekindle? I finished a 2nd polish on a manuscript in the first week of August, including a cut of 31 pages—no small feat. And I’m almost finished manuscript evaluation #2 for my clients. And soon, it’ll be time to call a halt for the last two weeks—to everything but reading and conceptualizing (which looks like loafing). So far, I've read two eye-opening books for a course I'm proposing: POINT OMEGA by Don Delillo and THE COLLECTOR by John Fowles (very disturbing but powerful).
How about you? What are your deep Summerland pleasures?