My bucket of shells...

When I was a kid, my family lived in New York. Each summer, we loaded up the car with plastic pails squished beneath suitcases crammed with swimsuits, sunscreen and beach towels, bags of Triscuits, Easy Cheese and powdered donuts, all to spend a week on Cape Cod.

Upon our return, the car was always weighed down with seashells which, despite our mother’s protests, my sister and I insisted on bringing home with us. We always had big plans for those shells, to make something out of them or stow them someplace special. Mostly they ended up in our garage. I think now about that impulse to pluck those shells from their beachy context, which is the whole concept behind souvenirs, I suppose, how when you love a place so much, you want a piece of it. For my sister and me, that took the form of a skate case, a gray scallop, a sun-bleached whelk (rarely intact), quahogs and sea clams, some chalky blue mussels, a sad looking barnacle-covered oyster––after all, the Cape isn't exactly Sanibel when it comes to beach finds, the rough ocean here more inclined to pummel than polish. Still, it was the hope of bringing a little bit of Cape Cod back with us to keep that cherished place close to our hearts.

Today I launch this blog with the idea that these posts will be a bit like those shells jangling around in the trunk, each one home for a thought. Some prettier than others but each unique, written with the intention to bring you back to the Cape in some way, or at the very least, to something meaningful, entertaining or thought provoking.

So with a few months before summer, and the launch of my second novel set on the Cape, come...bring your ear close. You might hear the ocean.