Today is July 4th. In Brooklyn people are BBQing and gearing up for the fireworks. I saw a child drawing on the sidewalk and an old woman nurturing a single struggling flower by the side of the street. I made a worm compost bin in the apartment that I've just moved into with my girlfriend Erin, who asks tentatively (for the third time) "are you sure there isn't any way for them to get out?" Our garden out back is (after many weeks of rain) giving us its beauty... the early fruit of the cherry tomato, the strawberries infant sized blossom. In short, my life is beautiful. It's overflowing.
As I trace the tributaries of my happiness back through the years, I find many springs and pools that have fed and nurtured me.... yet I always return to the Barnegat bay. That seemingly unmovable source of endless summers.... of happiness and reflection. I had the supreme privilege of sleeping the last night in the Manto house several days before it sold. I wanted to write to you and share this special trip in the hopes that it might ease a bit of the sadness and help us remember that our blessings are many and our time here still long.
Mantoloking June 24th
We drove down late Wed night and after a quick detour to Mel's all American Grill-
Mel's All American Grill... CHECK
we crossed the Mantoloking Bridge
Mantoloking Bridge.... CHECK
and made our way down Runyon Lane
Runyon Lane.... CHECK
to our house.
For most of us the sight of Mantoloking is automatic. Its stone driveway and prim facade... its peeling mailbox and sometimes overgrown front bushes.... they are primitive, stretching back to before our memory. This time was no different.
It was upon entering the house that it hit me... that I knew that I couldn't be brave enough to make this visit without feeling the weight of what I was losing. So I cried. Not because the house looked foreign and stripped bare, but because it was exactly the same. And isn't that why we love it? Because no matter what changes in our lives Manto is always the same. It's always there. And indeed, for a moment I hallucinated that the whole family was just out to the movies or maybe getting ice cream down the street. It felt no different than any summer of my life.Erin held my hand and asked me where the Kleenex was. Of course Grandma still had some. I started telling her all the thousands of memories I'd had in the house. We walked room to room. I was surprised at the history that poured from my mouth... who had slept where and when, what funny time Michael had done what where, which meal made the stain on what pan, which game Grandma had prepared for us, the tool closet that eternally will mean Grandpa to me.
We collected things. The kids table where I pretended to eat so my skin and bones cousin wouldn't starve, Miles Bourne which still bore years of victories and losses on its score sheets, the big yellow pot (which under my vegetarian rule probably has seen its last Lobster genocide).
But after the car was full I started to realize that we can never box up Manto and keep it. In a way the memories that live here are snapshots of our whole lives.... childhoods, summer loves, marriages, divorces, friendships and that special freedom that each of us felt when we were here. How rare it is that a full three generations have the great privilege of place like this?
That place is gone. We will each in our own way need to make our last trip to Manto, whether it be in our minds or passing by this summer.... with a dozen rotten eggs.... (just kidding grandma) The wooden hallways and breezy bay windows are no longer ours.But the wind of the Barnegat bay still blows. The ocean still has waves. The yellow brick road still serves ice cream (now till 11pm!) and we still have each other. If we want to, and I hope we do, we can figure out ways to celebrate the peace of the summer and relearn to appreciate the gift that Grandma and Grandpa gave us.
I woke up in the morning to the light of the bay. I laid in every bed. I touched every wall. I hugged the front porch. I said goodbye.
Meet me by the ocean.
Love,
Dan
