American Dream: A Special Place You Return To

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Fire Island Restores My Soul

By Norma Hopcraft

"Yoga weekends--I'll never manage another one." Alison, the manager of my hiking club's cabin on Fire Island, dusted her hands together.

"Why's that?" I asked.

I pause the story there to tell you a little about Fire Island. With this pandemic affecting our lives drastically for a year now, many of us have a pent-up desire to get out of the house and see new places -- or return to old favorites. 

For me, that's Fire Island. It's basically a 30-mile-long sandbar that runs parallel to the southern coast of Long Island, New York. The Atlantic breakers arrive there unblocked for thousands of miles and pound the sand with a roar that delights my ears.

Water horses, with manes flying behind them in the wind, course onto the beach at Fire Island.

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It can be a pricey place to visit, but my hiking club has a cabin there, an inexpensive way to stay.

The fun thing about my hiking club cabin is that you never know who you're going to meet. One summer, on one of my four trips to Fire Island that season, I attended a yoga weekend at the cabin. I chatted with the manager, Alison. Managers work hard over the weekend, feeding everyone and keeping the place organized. But they do get to stay on Fire Island for free.

Alison dusted the corn meal clinging to her hands. She was working on dinner.

"Yoga weekends--I'll never manage another one."

"Why's that?"

"This woman came in the kitchen this morning while I was making fruit salad for the cabin for breakfast. I had just finished slicing a banana and folding it into all the other fruit. She saw me throw the peel away and said, "Oh! I can't mix fruit with banana. It's not good for my system."

"So I picked all the banana slices out and put whole bananas on a plate, to be served next to the fruit salad."

"Yes?"

"And I saw the woman put fruit salad in a bowl. She grabbed a banana. A little while later her fruit bowl was empty and she was eating a banana! Sheesh! She's a little bananas to make me do all that extra work."

Even if some people stay at the cabin who are a little bananas, I still love it and go there as often as I can.

I've been returning to the cabin for 10 or 12 years, but it was closed all last year. I missed it terribly. It's a place that feeds my soul with wildness, with natural beauty, with huge expanses of sky, sand, and sea. It feeds my eyes after being among the brick, concrete, asphalt, and razor wire of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

I go there to rest from the brutal noise of the city. I go to journal about my writing, to hone my craft. I go to rejuvenate and get in touch with my inner creative springs again.

Won't you please tell me a favorite place that you'd like to return to? And why? Comment below!

I know that some people aren't crazy about the beach and sand. But to me, wet sand clinging to my feet is just part of being in a panoramic seascape: sun, surf, sand. The glitter of sun on the water, the ability to see the entire expanse of sky -- I love it! To be in the vast expanse of beach and sky has been essential to me all my life. I hope you enjoy these scenes from Fire Island!

You get to Fire Island by ferry. 

My friend Jane loves Fire Island too. This is called un Sunken Forest because it's located between the tops of two sand dunes.

A view of the Great South Bay, and beyond it the southern edge of Long Island, from the Sunken Forest.

This is the ocean side of Fire Island, at twilight. I love to walk a mile to the next town and its restaurants, with my feet caressed by the surf.

A sunset, looking over the Great South Bay.

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The Fire Island Lighthouse, seen from the ferry.

Houses on the bay side of Fire Island.

I always sit on the top level of the ferry. Except in rain.

On another trip, a different day, the sky and water appeared different.

This was a silvery, coppery, bronze day.

Another day and another mood for the Fire Island Lighthouse.

My author pic was taken on Fire Island. By my friend Jane!

There's an ice cream shop in Ocean Beach. This man is feeding his dog ice cream with his spoon! My sister Chris captured that photo and also these pictures of surfers on the day after a big storm:

I took this one, on a quieter day. How about you? What favorite, spiritually renewing place do you return to? Comment below!