This Weekend We- Merhons Take Coney Island

A year ago, my friend Maggie sent me a text telling me about the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Since that text message, there has been lots of late night bonfire scheming, lots of excitement, lots of image searching and pinning and planning, all leading to a weekend filled with girls and tails and conch shells.

It did not disappoint. We stayed in an Airbnb rental in Bushwick, which was a pretty long hike from Coney Island, but close to friends and cheap, delicious tacos.

We ate donuts (all good stories involve donuts) and sipped coffee on Saturday morning as hair was teased and shimmery green eyeshadow applied. We made the trek across Brooklyn, almost bursting with excitement as we got closer to Coney Island and started to run into more mermaids and parade enthusiasts.

I also fell a little in love with Coney Island, which is so different from the beaches I mostly went to as a kid. It's tacky and raucous and completely fun. I am already scheming more trips.   I want to see the freak shows and ride the rides, eat hot dogs and go back to Gambrinus to feast on lobsters, smoked eels, and baked clams; next time, with my boys in tow.

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Summer's Children

Monday was my last day at work for the summer, and I am so glad to be home, even if I also feel a little spoiled. I wish everyone got summer breaks. I stand in support of summer. I want days filled with the luxury of time: time to hang my laundry out to dry, time to linger in bed, time to make my kids breakfast, time to actually eat it with them. I want my kids to remember what it felt like to have nothing to do.

We started our summer with a bang-- nine kids and a beach closed down due to waste water treatment overflow.  The beach serves as our constant playground, an extension of our backyard. Without it, we almost don't know what to do with ourselves. We had to get creative. We pulled out the old kiddie pool, tried to make a slip n' slide, played a version of Marco Polo with a hose.

At first I felt the need to entertain them and to help them figure out what to do. But as the day wore on an ease took over. Little clumps of children found hidden spots to make mischief. They went tramping around my yard and my sisters' yard next door, went in and out of houses, searched for snacks, carried in mud and bugs. Arlo took to hugging Rory. Crushes developed. Hearts were broken.

We ended the night with hot dogs burned over a fire and our first attempt at an outdoor movie. Eight little people tried to fall asleep in a tent outside. One by one they all made their way inside, leaving only Gus asleep by himself. However, before the sleep, before abandoning the great outdoors, the grownups on the porch got to overhear rounds of truth or dare not soon to be forgotten.

This is summer.

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This Weekend We- Another Alumni Weekend

I graduated from St. Mary's ten years ago. The campus is full of history, both mine and a colony's.  It remains one of my favorite places in this world: part memory, part simplistic beauty. It's the place where I made my truest friends and fell in love and where, at the time, I thought I became an adult. I know better now; I know that I had a lot more growing up to do, but you couldn't have convinced me of that at the time.

Alumni  Weekend remains one of my favorite weekends of the summer-- my favorite weekends of the year.  Dozens of friends wandering around the campus, finding their way to the waterfront. In the past ten years I have made remarkably few friends who did not go to St. Mary's. Although I didn't know most of them when I went there, and others weren't even there at the same time, there is something about the people who choose that place that feel like my people. It felt that way when I was sixteen and eager to be living away from home, and it feels that way still, as I camp with my kids in The County.

Sailboats, inner tubes, beach side pizza, early morning donuts, mosquito ridden campsite, one small fight with Tom, a handle of Tito's in the bottom of a stroller, a whole lot of Summer Shandy, crab pickin', and some seriously adorable man a cappella. It was a damn good way to spend a weekend.

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Clichè

I am a clichè.

With my gallery walls and my trips to the farmer's market.

With my kids' names and my television habits.

With an incredibly unsurprising vinyl collection.

I have always been a clichè.

In college, I wore patchwork and had a nose ring. I listened to Phish and flirted with Buddhism. I dabbled in political activism and stopped eating meat. 

Add ten years to the equation and you have whatever I am now.

I like all the things that people like me are supposed to like: old flags and cameras, Bob Dylan and Wes Anderson,  coconut oil for everything. Now I dabble in minimalism and try to avoid gluten.

Sometimes I feel bad about it. I feel so unoriginal and expected. "Of course Rachel would like that..."

But then other times I remember that everyone is a cliche. Everyone is a type. And I happen to I like the type that I am. To hell with it.

I like my gallery wall and my deer antlers.

Bring on the fancy cocktails and artisinal cheese served on a rustic, farmhouse table. I'm hungry.

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