I am a home decor addict. There is no cure. Actually, I don't want to be cured. It all began with moving into my own apartment one block from the ocean in Belmar, NJ.. It was part of an interesting older home that had been subdivided to create income property. It had ten foot ceilings and very tall windows. Being on a budget with a capital B, I began sewing draperies and reupholstering second hand furniture. Eventually, it lead to a full time career as an interior designer. Since then, I have created charming interiors in mansions, cottages and beach bungalows on the Gulf coast of Florida, the New England sea coast from Boston to Kennebunkport, and here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I have been blessed to live along the coastal waters all of my life. Our family had a home at the Jersey shore and a charter fishing boat business. I was actually born there while my mother was on vacation. That set the tone for the rest of my life. I arrive early, prefer being on vacation, and feel best in hot weather. I believe humidity is good for the skin ( although it doesn't do much for my hair). With salt water in my veins, I love a rousing thunder storm and watching boats navigate the Inlet to safe harbors. And I collect seashells.
When not at the beach summers and weekends, I would walk along the shore of Newark Bay. Maybe being born under the sign of Cancer, a moon child pulled by the tides, caused my affinity for the sea. Perhaps the long swim in the icy Atlantic that my mother took the day before my birth had a subliminal effect. Now I walk along the bay on the West coast and the feeling is the same, a deep connection to something so much larger than myself, expansive and eternal. The clanging of rigging against mast in the breeze and a choir of gulls sing hosanna to the highest.
Each month I receive numerous shelter magazines in the mail. Veranda, Traditional Home, Elle Decor, are a few. But my very favorite is Coastal Living. Whenever I seek a mini mental vacation, especially in winter, I flip thru an issue of that magazine. Sea, sky, sand, sunsets, sails and sandpipers, shells like jewels on the shore take me away. On my coffee table is a large shallow bowl, aqua and iridescent like the Gulf of Mexico. There is a collection of sea shells in jars gathered with my children through the years. On the hearth is a large clear glass bowl filled with white powdered sugar sand from Siesta Key. A tiny Japanese rake allows me to trace patterns in the sand, easily shifted by the tides of my mood and imagination.
My children have moved far from the sea but vacations call them home to sand between the toes. Swimming, fishing, sailing and snorkeling, sunsets over the water sipping frosty drinks lure them back each year. My son in law has bought a small sailboat. Generations of seafaring tradition will continue when he teaches my grandson, Liam to sail first on a lake, then on the sea. My daughter will teach him about herons and urchins, sand dollars and sea turtles, jelly fish and dolphins. I can't wait to explore tide pools of treasure, starfish, and tiny crab. Together we will begin his collection of seashells. I will share some that his mommy brought me when, as a toddler, she too learned to love the sea.
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