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MEMORIES OF A HUMBLE BEACH HOUSE
by Sara Drought Nebel

Many years ago, after the back to back storms, Irene 2011 and Sandy 2012, I put a little plein air Circle Beach painting of (what I named) Grace Cottage, in a local newspaper press release, to announce my annual Winter Solstice/Holiday Open Studio. The first person to arrive on that first--snow-flurry-solstice day was a woman who had rented that little cottage many times and had been there as a child. She had many family memories that she delighted in telling me about. She bought that little panel and two others, and some cards.That painting would be a gift for her sister. Many more people were still to come.	Truro Duneshack by Sara Drought Nebel
I would have sold that little leaning-on- stilts-boarded-up-windows-beach-cottage painting many times over that day.
Thimble Island Lobster Boat by Sara Drought Nebel

What was priceless to me was to have people sitting in my studio, sharing their childhood to adulthood stories from the memories created in similar bungalows like this, in Connecticut, Staten Island, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Cape Cod and Maine. Memories of no television, playing from dawn to dusk, under the cottage stilts, and on the beach with cousins and friends they had not seen in a year or more. While parents talked nearby and interrupted them only for the occasional squabble and to call them for meals. Playing card games and board games at night, then sleeping early and long to the sounds(and scents) of ocean waves and adult laughter and gossip. Sleeping on bunk beds and the floor without a care in the world.Time stretched out..
Circle Beach Friends by Sara Drought Nebel	Circle Beach Friends by Sara Drought Nebel
All of these memories - awakened by the image of a tiny beach house in the newspaper. That cottage has since become a ghost, along with many of the cottages taken by storms in recent years, but the memories live on, and there are still surviving little cottages out there. The romantic duneshacks of Truro, MA. The book, The Outermost House by Henry Beston (someone told me about that book and I scurried to get it) The paintings of Homer, the Wyeths, Rockwell Kent and Edward Hopper. The writings of Henry David Thoreau. Poems by Robert Frost and Longfellow. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From The Sea, (original movie) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and so many more writings and movies explore the romance of beach houses. I dream of living in one someday….for now I can paint, write about and dream about them and a New England Beach House road trip……. Anything is possible.
Cicle Beach Twins by Sara Drought Nebel
Winter Cottage Winter cottage, are you resting echoing icecap waves to hear? The howl of a cold nor'easter whistling at your wood-wall ear? Snowglare through your frosted windows sparkles on a blue horizon. An empty clothesline, simple, bare- outdoor shower with chrome-snow hair. One seagull soars above your roof- a sign of summer past and proof that although the cold still holds tight time will bring summer’s light and melt the snow and warm the sand -life to house again, will land The shower pour, the clothesline flutter warm towels, grill and sailboat rudder… Dream on cottage, in winter sleep a summer promise you must sleep.	Grace Cottage A pocketful of shells and smooth stones. A tiny lone cedar sways in the breeze. Weathered wood, creaking stairs small footprints go from the door to the shore. Blue reflections from the sky rhythmic sparkles passing by waves dependably land on mauve brown wet sand. -Quiet days like these and scented blonde beach grass blow- like a child’s hair through the wind of my dreams.
Truro Walking toward the flaming orange setting sun. Sea relics cast long lavender shadows until everything is twilight blue and the horizon is deep smoldering red. A cottage light flickers high on a lonely dune with whispering grasses bending toward the vast Atlantic ocean and darkening indigo nightrise dreaming of dawn.	Poems by Sara Drought Nebel
Sara Drought Nebel Madison, CTf saradnebel@gmail.com 203 927 9830 Sara Drought Nebel on Facebook and Instagram