It’s very cold here in the Villas, New Jersey, as I write this in a rented cottage not far from the bay beach. My weekend escape from the city.

2023’s Thanksgiving was fairly uneventful. I was not paying attention to the news of the day. In the morning I walked around with Pepper up to Market Street and back toward Rittenhouse Square as the parade wound down. On the sidewalks, just a few stragglers, mostly parents with young children. As we walked I felt grateful for the fact that I could escape to the outdoors, away from the music booming from my downstairs neighbor’s apartment.  

Here, the only sounds that trickle into the cottage are from outdoors, a tiny bird scratching at the leaves under a small evergreen, the whistling of the cold wind, a few cars driving past. For me, this is luxury. 

I drove down yesterday, the day after Thanksgiving, to visit the natural setting where I spent many days and nights when I was younger.  My friend’s stepdad would give us his saltbox house for a few days. The girlfriends spent days on the beach after pancake breakfast at Uncle Bill’s then at the bars at night getting up to whatever and whoever we’d run into in Cape May. Sometimes we would drive out to Sunset Beach on dark nights after dinner and just watch the sky. 

I try to visit Sunset Beach as often as I can. It’s become a kind of sacred space for me. The grittiness of the pale, pebbly sand. Looking out toward the glittery ocean there’s the sunken ruin of the concrete ship. Behind me, the crunch of tires as visitors in cars move in and out of the parking lot, the shops selling souvenir tees and sweatshirts and the usual shoretown trinkets and the famous Cape May Diamonds, that traveled here from the Delaware River. Visitors can search the beach for them or buy them in the Sunset Beach Gift shop. 

But, it’s the sky that hits me; in any kind of weather, at any time of day. Here is a photo just about 1 hour before sunset on Friday, November 24, 2023.