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A second place that is very important to me is Dennis, Cape Cod. When I was little, my family used to go to a little beach cottage that we rented for a week or so on the Cape. It would be the highlight of my year. I remember the night before I would force myself to go to sleep super early so I could get as much sleep as possible at home, because I would never want to sleep there. While everyone was sleeping, I would sneak out of my room, go to the back porch and sit on the beach. The house was literally right on the water. You walked outside of the back of the house, and you would be standing in sand. The house stood right in between two massive sand dunes that would whip the sand around like we were in the middle of a desert. There was a little restaurant down the street from the house, Gina’s By the Sea, that was only open 3 nights a week; Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I don’t know if the food was actually that good, but I have convinced myself that they have the best pesto gnocchi ever. Every year, it was the same routine, but a little different. We would bring our family friends, one year we brought our cat, it was always a little different. It was kind of like a second home, not in the sense that we felt like we really belonged there, it was just so peaceful and romanticized, and you could just breathe. I loved this house more than anything, whenever hurricane season would come around, I would get this huge knot in my stomach that something horrible would happen to the house. It would be destroyed, or flooded, or who knows- maybe blow away (I was 6). But every summer, there it was, standing strong.

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Penfield Beach, Fairfield Beach Road, Fairfield, CT

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Penfield Beach, Fairfield Beach Road, Fairfield, CT

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Penfield Beach, Fairfield Beach Road, Fairfield, CT

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A third place that is very important to me is Penfield Beach. While living on the near opposite side of town, I practically grew up on this beach. My mom always thought it was really important to understand the world around you in a way that you interact and learn by observing. That is a perfect combination for the beach. We went at least once a week, probably more, every summer. And then, as we got older and stopped complaining about the cold, we would sometimes even go in the early spring or the winter. The beach in the winter will always hold a special place in my heart. The icy tint across the whole landscape and the pure peace and quiet. We would bring hot chocolate on mornings and just go and sit and watch. And as the seasons changed, and I got older, the hot chocolate turned to iced coffee and bagels on summer mornings before the other families would set up their camps with umbrellas and screaming children and loud music. We would get there just in time to still catch the nocturnal moon snails that would wonder the sands during the night and creep deeper out to sea when the crowds came. They never seemed bothered by us when we would scour the beach for seashells and take pictures. This tradition will always be one of my fondest childhood memories, and the reason why the beach is so special to me. The beach is like a total reset to me, whenever I need to clear my head or get away from it all, the beach always has my back.

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Captain's Cove Seaport and Restaurant, Bostwick Avenue, Bridgeport, CT

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Captain's Cove Seaport and Restaurant, Bostwick Avenue, Bridgeport, CT

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Captain's Cove Seaport and Restaurant, Bostwick Avenue, Bridgeport, CT

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One of the most important places to me is Captain’s Cove. I have basically grown up there. When I was 5 years old, my mom needed a place to bring me, 5, and my older sister, 10, so that she could make money, use her creativity, and still watch us grow up and not be working at a desk somewhere all day and never see us in the summer when we were off from school. I remember our first season there. We had opened up a nautical themed shop in the middle of the boardwalk. It was a tall yellow building, the only one that was two stories high. We never used the upstairs though, it was way too hot. Seriously, you could probably bake bread. I remember bringing a little lunch box filled with snacks and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I remember being so proud that I got to say I was “going to work”. Right before school ended, and the teachers would ask what we would be doing over the summer, I could not stress enough that “I was going to my mom’s store”. Now, I never actually worked, because I was literally 5 and was way too shy to speak to all the strangers anyway. But I was still just so proud to be there. Back to the store, we had a myriad of things. My family have always been big beach people. We would spend hours and hours at the beach for most of the summer from when I was born to when we opened the store. My mom is a very creative person. We would walk along the shoreline, and while I searched for hermit crabs and moon snails, my mom would quietly comb the beach looking for shells. She had always loved collecting shells, and it’s a very common thing to do. But what was more uncommon was she would start to spell things out with the shells. She could pick up an ordinary whelk, and stare at it for a few seconds, and suddenly it’s a question mark. Or a broken piece of a clam looks like the sail of a sailboat. She could turn any shell into any shape, it was like magic. I don’t exactly know how it happened, but suddenly she started bringing the shells home. She would take pieces of wood from crates or barrels or whatever, and glue the shells all together into phrases, or names, or anything she thought of. Then, she would paint a water landscape and glue the clam sailboat to the board. I used to study the half finished boards while my mom would make dinner. Then admire them hung on the walls of the store, and proudly promote them to customers as they would pass by. I've learned so much from this place as I've grown up. I've learned about business, and what it takes to run an operation all by yourself and the kind of person that takes. I've learned about people, and how no two are the same because we all come from different stories and different settings. But most importantly I've learned about how family can create a tradition out of anything to stick together. My family made a major process out of setting up the store each spring before the summer season, and all winter creating signs and making displays. Over the years, we have drifted away from the seashell shop, and upgraded to the ice cream and candy shops of the boardwalk- the real Park Place and Boardwalk in Monopoly. But regardless of where we are, our tradition and dedication is still strong.