SUNNYSIDE UP MOMENT - MAY 26, 2020

DAY SEVENTY-ONE OF THE CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE FOR US AT STACK 'EM HIGH PANCAKES AND SO FORTH

Not a week goes by during the season that someone doesn’t wave one of us over to their table to talk about what it must be like “living at the beach.”  I can’t speak for the rest of our staff, but I am sad to say that nine times out of ten I don’t think my answer is the answer people are looking for.  To me, “living at the beach” feels pretty much like “living in Ohio.”

No matter where you live your time is divided between work and play.  And, every place you call home has its pros and its cons.  I don’t miss driving to work on ice or through slushy streets or parking next to a plowed heap of garbled gravel and graying snow.  But then again, few things rival the tingle you get from a brisk jaunt down a neighborhood sidewalk flanked by stately trees in autumnal splendor.  In March, when Highway Twelve washes over and the wind blows relentlessly it’s hard to understand why people flock here to the edge of the earth.  In September, when you breach the dune and the tide is gently folding itself over in synchronized ribbons of turquoise and teal it’s hard to understand why people would live anywhere else.

Just as to everything there is a season, to every place there are locks and there are keys.  Roald Dahl instructs us to, “watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.  Those who don’t believe in the magic will never find it.”  It just takes a little imagination to liberate something magnificent from something mundane.  Luckily for all of us, good living doesn’t depend so much on our vista.  It depends on our field of vision.  If we consciously build opportunities for inspiration and insight into our day, they will come.