…it’s part of who I am; I was born this way. Landlocked in Detroit, where I was raised, I lived for that one week of bliss, our summer vacation on the Lake Michigan Shore in South Haven.  When I say I lived for this single week, that’s not far from the actual truth. I daydreamed about it all year, and fantasized about how great it would be to really live in a coastal town – how lucky those people were. Did they look at that Lake every day and pinch themselves with glee? That vacation week was a singular moment in my childhood…and into young adulthood. Every year my Dad would tease us with, “who wants to stay another week?” and every year I almost believed that he’d throw caution to the wind and we’d just stay on for that second week. Never happened, of course. I hated packing up and going home.

When I was a grown up, my husband and I lucked into a relocation that took us to west Michigan and  lived in an awesome town on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Our home was in a neighborhood with that oh-so-coveted deeded beach access. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. This really was my dream, come true.

Then we moved here: to Atlantic Beach.  If I thought Grand Haven was heaven, I was ecstatic about settling in this warm weather coastal community just steps from the beach.  I love the beach (as if that hasn’t been patently obvious on this blog).  I’m constantly snapping photo upon photo, and video too.  I keep hearing my Dad’s voice, “Don’t photograph your life  – live it!”  Well, I guess this is how I live my life.  I get carried away with excitement, even after all this time, and out comes the camera… don’t even ask how many pictures are living on the hard drive, each of them elbowing the other out of way, vying for precious space.  I know I need to get in there with the delete key, but it’s hard decide which pictures go off into the ether, so I just put it off.

Since I’m happiest when I’m in or near the water, I recorded this little video and now I’ll share it with you: