• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • Advertising
  • CR Radio
  • Printing
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

The perfect cure for beach-sickness (or what we did on our summer vacation)

July 22, 2019
By Rita Buettner
Filed Under: Blog, Open Window

We weren’t really planning to go to the beach this year. We had decided we would go visit my sister Maureen and her four children, who live north of New York City. Maybe we would make a few day trips from her house or spend an overnight somewhere together.Then Maureen heard about a friend of a friend who owned a house on Long Island. She sent me the link to the house, and I texted it to John.

The message came back: “Let’s do it.”

The house was just the right size. We could drive to the beach every day, and there was a pool in the backyard—and a swing set, too. We were sold.

When I saw my niece Elise a few weeks before the trip, she told me she was “beach-sick.” She was longing to be at the beach. Weren’t we all?

As it turns out, it’s hard for us to imagine a summer without a beach. In past years we have gone to Rehoboth, which we always enjoy. This year we tried something different—and Ponquogue Beach was lovely.

I was in awe of the natural beauty of the area. It reminded me of Assateague with its marshy spots for egrets and exquisitely blue bay. The sand along the beach was sprinkled with the biggest shells we had seen, along with horseshoe crabs and crab claws and seaweed and a long translucent sting-ray-shape.

We had stayed at my sister’s house on our way to the beach, and somehow we managed to leave all our dirty laundry there. When we arrived at the beach house and I realized that we had remembered brass instruments, but not most of our clothes, I had a feeling we were in for a memorable vacation.

I was right.

The children who had insisted on bringing their instruments set up a whole concert. They charged admission and then played 11 songs, each dramatically introduced by our younger son. They offered autographs after the concert was over.

Everyone enjoyed the beach, but our boys loved the pool at least as much as they liked the sand. They dropped into bed every night exhausted—and the grownups were right behind them.

We played Telestrations, which is my favorite board game for the beach, and we laughed until we couldn’t speak or breathe.

We read book after book after book. Elise, who is 12, persuaded me to try Lois Lowry’s The Giver, which I read and then we discussed together.

When we ran out of books to read, we stopped by a used bookstore we found near an ice cream parlor we just had to try, Candy Kitchen, which dates back more than 90 years.

What a vacation it was. We went fishing and explored the area and ate ice cream every day and swam and played and slept. We talked and talked, sharing memories and ideas about the future and lots about the memories we were making right now.

The last morning our older son asked if he could bring a book to the beach. He sat in a beach chair and read. It was extraordinary.

I found myself remembering all the times I’ve followed children around the beach, making sure they didn’t fall into a hole or fling sand in another child’s face or steal the green shovel every preschooler wanted or get swept away in the ocean.

Going to the beach used to be anything but relaxing.

We’ve turned a page in our parenting story to the chapter where the children can carry their own beach chairs and shovels and beach towels, and then sit with their books and read quietly in the sunshine.

There’s a twinge of sadness to that transition, but there’s also great joy. My son and I sat together and read while the seagulls hovered and the breeze drifted toward us. I thought of the young man he is already and wondered about the man he will become.

I wished I could freeze time, but then I remembered that so many times I’ve wanted to pause—when the next moment has been even more wonderful than I could imagine.

The sun rose higher into the sky, and soon enough the children were hungry and tired and didn’t want another dose of sunscreen. It was time to go.

The cousins wrote their farewell to the beach in the sand the way they always do, and we said goodbye to the beach.

There’s just something about the beach.

Goodbye, beach, at least for now.

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Rita Buettner

Rita Buettner is a wife, working mother and author of the Catholic Review's Open Window blog. She and her husband adopted their two sons from China, and Rita often writes about topics concerning adoption, family and faith.

Rita also writes The Domestic Church, a featured column in the Catholic Review. Her writing has been honored by the Catholic Press Association, the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association and the Associated Church Press.

View all posts from this author

Recent Commentary

How we live our lives on and offline

Who’s ready for a summer party?

A compassionate ‘yes’ to life

Prayer is the first resort

Appreciating good homilies

Recent Local News

Baltimore Basilica temporarily closes as precaution in wake of Supreme Court ruling

Pro-life leaders in Archdiocese of Baltimore respond to Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade

Cardinal says renewing Vatican II’s spirit can carry the church forward

Leadership transition coming to Baltimore Basilica as Father Boric prepares to enter Carmelite hermitage

Archdiocese of Baltimore concludes Year of the Eucharist with special Corpus Christi Mass

Catholic Review Radio

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Baltimore Basilica temporarily closes as precaution in wake of Supreme Court ruling
  • Outside high court, joy, defiance and insults after Roe is struck down
  • Welcoming court’s decision, leaders say it’s time to build pro-life culture
  • Pro-life leaders in Archdiocese of Baltimore respond to Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade
  • Supreme Court overturns Roe in anticipated Dobbs decision
  • Pope to visit Canada, limiting participation to one hour at various events
  • Hope must prevail over Mafia culture of fear, pope says
  • Cardinal says renewing Vatican II’s spirit can carry the church forward
  • Michigan center is among latest pro-life facilities vandalized across U.S.

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2022 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED