Coney Island, Riis Park, Rockaway (cue the Ramones): These were my wet and wild teenage hangouts. All were accessible from my Brooklyn neighborhood by bus, subway, and/or car (sometimes we hitched; shhh! don’t tell my mother!), yet it never occurred to me to go any time other than summer. 

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Then, in my late twenties, I knew a guy who knew a guy who had money—and a house in the Hamptons, which is how I got invited to spend New Year’s weekend in that wealthy stretch of eastern Long Island. A beach vacation in winter? Yes. Not to indulge in hyperbole, but it changed my life. While the guy proved just a blip on my romantic radar, from that weekend on, I was an all-seasons beach girl.

A Beach Vacation in Winter: Snow Angels in the Sand

The fireplace and the champagne we drank in front of it are all I really remember about the house, but the beach I’ll never forget. It was f-f-f-freezing. Windy, too. The waves were huge, formidable. There’d been a storm a few days before, and there was snow on the sand, a sight that totally tripped me out. 

On that deserted beach, I got the sense of being insignificant yet also part of universal foreverness.

Plus, the beach was deserted. We felt like we were the only two people on the planet. We chased each other around and then made snow angels—or tried to (it was no longer perfect fresh powder; our heavenly creatures were kinda crinkly).  I got the sense—which I often feel amid natural splendor—of being insignificant yet also somehow part of universal foreverness, the never-ending continuum of energy. And I don’t think we’d even smoked any pot!  

California Dreaming

Not long after, I moved to Los Angeles, where hitting the beach in January wasn’t all that weird (except if the temperature dipped below 50 degrees, when the Santa Monica Pier turned into a ghost town). And talk about natural splendor: You could hike your heart out in Topanga State Park (ooh! aah!) and then minutes later be chilling along the mighty Pacific (equally ooh! aah!).

I always woke up early for a solo stroll on the beach to gather sea galss and “just be.”

The family of an L.A. friend owned an oceanfront house in Ventura, and we had some really fun girls’ weekends there—winter, spring, summer, and fall. But no matter how late we stayed up, gabbing and guzzling, I always woke up early for a solo stroll on the beach to gather sea glass and “just be.”

So when I returned to New York City years later, how could I possibly constrain myself to a scant two and a half warm-weather months, especially since that’s when the beach is typically packed with people?

Bliss and the Beach, Beyond Summer

Don’t get me wrong—I love people. A few at a time. Not en masse. And the older I get, the less tolerant I am of crowds. So, while I still head to the beach in the summertime, it’s usually before noon or to watch the sunset. 

However, once back in NYC, I met a very special person: the man who would become my husband. J. didn’t grow up going to the shore, being more of a mountains and lake kid. What’s more, he’s from the South—cold weather, is not his thing. I had my work cut out for me.

A memorable winter beach moment: Watching the Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge, as they ran in the icy water.

The first time I convinced him to go to the beach in winter, I appealed to his wacky side. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club was hosting its traditional New Year’s Day Plunge, during which hundreds of brave folks run into the icy briny, some for a quick dip, some for a full-on swim. Though my guy and I didn’t have the gumption to participate, we joined the cheering onlookers, then walked about a mile east to warm up with bowls of steaming pink borscht in the Eastern European enclave of Brighton Beach. 

Why Wait for Summer?

Still early in our courtship, we took a short vacation (always a romance litmus test) in Cape May, New Jersey—a quaint seaside town, situated on the tip of the state, known for its beautifully maintained Victorian homes. But this was the last week in March, and while the day dawned promisingly lamb-like for our beach excursion, that lion of ferocious wind roared up as we returned, heads down and hands stuffed in the pockets of our grossly inadequate jackets. It must have taken us three times as long to get back to our B&B. (I won’t give details on how we defrosted, but I did say this was early in our relationship, right?)

My husband and I found ‘our’ beach, an idyllic area in Delaware that we visit in the fall.

Since then, we’ve holidayed up and down the Atlantic coast, hitting Cape Cod, Block Island, Chincoteague (of wild ponies’ fame, fondly remembered from the kid lit of my youth), the Outer Banks, and even Miami. Ultimately, we found “our” beach, an idyllic area in what’s known as slower lower Delaware, which we like to visit in late September/early October. Most of our favorite restaurants are still open, the thrift stores are practically giving away what the summer people have donated, and the water is still warm enough for swimming.  Trouble is, that time of year is also hurricane season. We’ve never been in danger, but once we opted to split for home a day early to outrun a storm, and on another occasion, it poured every single day of our week’s vacation. And I do mean poured—our rental house was literally leaking.

Now, Life’s a Beach

I’ve always dreamed of living by the sea, but J. and I aren’t climate change deniers, so we don’t think oceanfront property would be a smart investment even if we could afford it. That said, two years ago we did move to a town that’s 10 minutes from the shore—as close as I’ll probably get to my fantasy becoming reality.  He and I often hit the beach together (him usually strumming a ukulele), and we manage to coax friends out of the city. Still, for me, going to the beach alone is absolutely fine. 

Being alone on the beach gives me perspective on life’s ups and downs. The surf rolls in, and the surf rolls out.

Being there helps me gain perspective on life’s ups and downs—the whole insignificant-yet-also-somehow-part -of-universal-foreverness thing. The surf rolls in, and the surf rolls out. The sky meets the water in a single simple line. The smell of the beach, the sound, and the negative ions (which are actually positive) all do me right. Besides, I’m not really alone, since depending on the season there’s wildlife. Various kinds of shore birds, including sandpipers, are my favorites. And today—gray clouds, autumn chill in the air, not what most people would call a “beach day”—I spotted a pair of dolphins close to shore, arcing playfully up and down. Grinning like a fool I followed them, and waved, and “whoo-hoo’d!”—and felt like the luckiest beach girl in the world.