Finding that Fire Island Feeling

When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle owned a summer home in a family-centric community on Fire Island. For those unfamiliar, Fire Island is a tiny barrier island off Long Island. Accessible by ferry, there are no cars permitted on the island. People rarely wear shoes. You can walk from the bay to the ocean in minutes and your shopping options, at least near their home, are limited to one general store, one alarmingly overpriced grocer and an ice cream shack. Oh, and a liquor store.

As a kid, here’s what my days were like when we went to visit my aunt and uncle. Get up. Put on a bathing suit. Slather on the sunscreen. Then spend the day swimming and digging for clams in the bay, fishing off the dock, wandering to the store for ice cream, reading books, hanging with my cousins and swimming in the ocean. There was always sand on the floor and sand in the sheets and sand in the potato chips and a feeling that time stretched out open and unencumbered.

I’ve been chasing the “Fire Island feeling” of time affluence ever since. Today, even in summer, I find my days carved up in 30-minute chunks, typically with more scheduled in each of those chunks than is possible to accomplish. I run from one thing to the next, my time governed by to-do lists and calendars. 

For three summers now, I have clearly expressed a desire to rediscover that Fire Island feeling. I’m hoping that at some point this summer, I find it.