New Jersey Sand in My Shoes
Over 20 years ago, my roommate at the time convinced me to go see a psychic before I moved away from my hometown in the Atlantic City, NJ, area. Being a cynic’s cynic, I reluctantly agreed and expected to see one of the Boardwalk “spiritual advisors” — swarthy women in turbans staring into fake crystal balls and charging a dollar to read your palm to give you a one-size-fits-all prediction. To my surprise, a blonde haired suburban house frau welcomed us into her nicely furnished split-level rancher without a single beaded-curtain covering the doorways and not a drop of incense wafting through the air. I sat down across from her at the kitchen table. There was a Pfaltzgraff salt-and-pepper shaker set between us. She closed her eyes for a moment and then looked up at the ceiling. “Did your father die recently?” Surprised by her first comment, I nodded yes. She smiled and told me that his spirit was very strong and was in the room with us. She assured me that he would always be near and would watch over me. Although that sounded just like my father, how could she possibly know? I was impressed, but still skeptical. “I see a man with blue eyes, dark hair, and a mustache. He broke your heart?” Again, I nodded yes but tried to keep a poker-face. I was a bit uneasy about how she “knew” these painful things about the past five months of my life. I asked her if the job that I had accepted in Washington, DC, was right for me and if the move was a wise one. She said it was a positive thing to do; a journey I had to take. Hesitating, for fear that she may say “never,” I asked her if I would ever come back to the shore again. She thought for a moment and told me that I would return, but not for a long time. Once I moved and was finally able to say goodbye to New Jersey, I tended to agree with Thomas Wolfe’s philosophy that you just cannot go home again. I made a pretty happy home and life elsewhere. Going back meant going backwards, and that just did not feel right. Wolfe’s philosophy sustained me until a few years ago when a new voice, Bon Jovi’s hit single “Who Says You Can’t Go Home,“ kept playing in my head. New Jersey’s native son claimed that he had been all around the world and that there was only one place left to go and that would be back home — and in his case, that was New Jersey. While Bon Jovi’s song was becoming the marketing campaign jingle for New Jersey tourism, several of my friends who I have known since the fourth grade were being called back to the Jersey Shore like Ulysses’ men by the Sirens: Holly, who is a mermaid at heart, bought her childhood home so she could get back to the beach whenever she had free time and eventually retire there. Lolly left the Atlantic City area but returned years ago having discovered that the New Jersey shore “…is where I wanted to be…closer to my family when I had my children.” Grace, who lives in Paris , heard the Siren’s call all the way from across the Atlantic, and bought a vacation townhouse six blocks from her family’s old house. Like swallows returning to Capistrano, something was instinctually herding my friends back to what is familiar, comfortable, and safe. Susan, although not originally a Jersey girl, has become an honorary club member after 25+ years. While sitting through a slide-show presentation of Atlantic City’s history at a local museum, her eyes welled up with tears one day as she leaned over and whispered “…I just love this place...I really just love this place....” Then last summer, I found myself hearing the call of the shore as well. I was not quite sure who or what was calling, but I definitely heard the call to head back — even if it was just for weekends or vacations. Like a migrating bird, I found the need to build a new nest in an old locale and bought a beach front condo on the same block where I grew up. Kismet? Karma? Fate? Coincidence? Now that our circle of friends has a common area to gather in again, it’s old home week when we pick up some Sac-O subs and eat them on the beach gossiping, laughing, and reminiscing about everything from our safety patrol days in fourth grade to our Atlantic City High School cafeteria food fights to our lives and loves and hopes – both met and those not met to expectation. A few weeks ago, I was hanging some pictures in my condo. The ocean breeze blew in the smell of the beach – a salt water and suntan lotion concoction that brought back memories: my old house on Jackson Avenue, the souvenir shop where I sold T-shirts as a teenager, pizza joints, custard stands, and amusement piers on the Boardwalk. Then I remembered my visit with the psychic many years ago and her prediction that I would come home some day. As I hung another picture and heard the gulls calling each other, I realized how dead wrong Thomas Wolfe was about coming home. Clearly, he did not have salt water in his blood and Jersey sand in his shoes. By day, Molly Golubcow is a technical writer. By night, she writes fiction and articles. Her work has appeared in anthologies (Family Gatherings, Things That Go Bump in the Night), in newspapers and magazines (Atlantic City Weekly, New Jersey Lifestyle Magazine, Washington Jewish Week), and online (jerseyworks, generationJ, commonties).
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In MaineThese feet Yes, size eight, okay nine, still remember Moody Beach and gray Maine. In my dreams, the sand squeezes itself between my toes snuggling for room warm, a briny bath slipping on wet weeds, not walking on empty shells Stepping gives pleasure and footprints make water holes for dry ducks and parched sandpipers I scatter breadcrumbs The seagulls turn their heads, but they are looking for big game poised for shadows of slow fish or the occasional slurp of dropped lobster roll. —Jane Sellman Jane Sellman is the editor of Walk Awhile in Our Shoes.
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