A Love Letter to a Summer Haven
When you are younger, summer holds so much promise in it’s warm hands. There’s an unspoken pledge as June waltzes in with its blossoms and warm winds. It’s a lovely introduction to a new season full of sunlight to fall in love with. Under the sun, feet in the sand, sunglasses on and the smell of sunscreen and ocean water becoming your new organic perfume.
Summer always glittered with those achingly bold bright days yet also would whispers sweet, cooler days of fresh linen and climbing roses on waterfront New England cottages. There are those days that are full of living poetry - tangerine and streaks of hot pink sunsets, white lights in coastal backyards full of Adirondack chair and vases of peonies. Charcuterie boards and sparking water and citronella candles.
Summer is also punctuated with those rainy days where a cup of coffee on a wrap around porch make you feel all the beauty and comfort and inspiration in world as each rain drop falls.
As I have gotten older, work and adult obligations often swept away the “adventure” and “romance” of it all. I traded in in the sun kissed hours of crafting sandcastles, seashell gathering and swimming in the little treasure troves dotted along the Connecticut shoreline. The way I have folded summer up like a vintage, Hermes scarf and gently put away in a cabinet in my Old Hollywood style vanity was emblematic of how I closed the chapter of the summer of my youth.
Yet still, I go back to Mansfield Grove. Mansfield Grove is a private beach enclave full of cottages built (and some restored since then) in the 20’s, faded candy color kayaks, seashells of the palest apricot and muted eggshell color. I have found serenity, poetry, and a sense of belonging on a quiet beach full of secret sand bars and wildflowers leading you to the beach.
I like to take pictures and think of them as postcards to my future self . A postcard, a love letter, an ode. A tribute to summer with a mix of nostalgia and reality. It’s a beautiful and fleeting season - summer - and I’ll forever chase sunflowers, strolls on private beaches and toes dipped in the water.
Mansfield Grove light up in the summer months is a steadfast haven for me; a sweet place to escape to for quick serenity. It’s also a landmark of nostalgia, the sun-drenched nostalgia of a summer youth that no poetry, no songs, no photographs can really capture. It’s a Haven, a part of my heart and place. I’ll always travel through the tall grass to find this beach enclave full of magic, memories and laughter still clinging to the air like the scent of honeysuckle on a July night.
This is my love letter to you, my summer haven.
