Against the Current

Chasing new vacation traditions, finding our way into old rhythms.

There is no more hopeful moment than the one when you book a house for a beach trip. Vibes! There for the taking. This year’s summer beach trips are still weeks out, but they hang large in my mind right now—a heavy golden moon casting its vacation glow over everything. So this month, I’m sending an essay I wrote a few years ago. There are more babies, more memories since then—including some truly terrible ones marked by biting beach flies, raging postpartum hormones, and pre-dawn stomach bugs—but my feelings about the vacation traditions we are making together are exactly the same.

---

The joke writes itself: our 80-pound baby, carefully buckled in the backseat next to our actual baby. It is the morning of our third annual trip to Edisto Island, and though our poor sedan is already straining under all the accoutrements of beach-going (did I mention we have a baby?), it feels entirely essential to wrestle an 80-pound ceramic, charcoal-fired grill in with everything else. Yes, our rental house has a standard, salt-rusted grill we could have used. Yes, our car is visibly dragging a bit under the weight. Yes, this is how we travel.

Edisto became our beach by way of a cheap rental a few years ago. We had a pool of friends and a pot of money; when we found a house that fit our budget, we scooped it up. We didn’t know how quiet Edisto was, how undisturbed, how boring. The island has only a handful of restaurants, a single, overpriced grocery store, and huge taps at the local fire station where you have to fill jugs with fresh water for drinking and cooking every day. This would be outrageous to my mother—a vacation where you have to cook and haul your own water? We found it delightful and serendipitous. We were already a crew of friends who loved to cook and planned to make most of our meals at the beach house; the constraints provided by Edisto’s lack of restaurants only spurred us on.

In fact, so much of what we now consider core to our Edisto trips came serendipitously. That first year, no one had babies yet and we were free to while away the hours without ever looking at a clock. We’d linger on the beach all day, salty and sun-soaked, until someone felt moved to meander back to the house, put out some olives and chips, and stir together some pre-dinner cocktails. If we got bored midday, we’d go for a drive, windows down. The roads leading away from the beach are shaded by overhanging trees and moss, and driving them feels like being shuttled through a smooth tunnel of shadow and sunlight. We discovered George & Pink on one of these drives. A long road led us to a small, dirt-floor vegetable stand. Inside, baskets and buckets were brimming with late-summer South Carolina produce, just a glory of tomatoes and sweet corn and squash. When the owner rang us up, we asked curiously, “So, what’s the story behind the name?”

She cocked an eyebrow at us and shot back incredulously, “I’m Pink!” As it turns out, George is her father. Pink Brown runs this charming veggie stand year-round, and we have returned every year to stock up for the week. Pink pointed us to Flowers Seafood Co., a tiny blue hut where a family-owned Edisto shrimp boat drops off its daily catch.

We bought more shrimp than we truly needed because, honestly, how can you pass up fresh Carolina shrimp at the beach? I remember later that night we had okra and sweet corn on the grill, tomatoes so perfect they only needed salt, and a big tray of roasted sausage, shrimp, and new potatoes. We drank beer or crisp white wine while we cooked. “Can you toss me the smoked paprika?” someone shouted from outside by the grill.

This year, like every year, there is a mountain of dishes by nightfall, but I don’t really mind. We listen to music, wipe counters sticky from the day’s margaritas, scrub pans, prep the coffee pot for a friendly morning. Determined to get good use from the grill we hauled down here, I lay fresh pineapple slices on the grate over still-warm embers. By the time they’re warm and smoky to serve with vanilla ice cream, someone has dealt cards for a game of BS. It’s my first time playing this card game, and it only takes two rounds for the rest of the table to see what I cannot: I am unspeakably bad at BS. Every time I slap my cards down, I am confident that this time, I am cool and impassable, that no one can figure me out. And every single time, my bluff is called immediately. The room is giddy with laughter, I am flushed and caught in the topsy-turvy kaleidoscope of desperately losing poker players or bombing stand-up comedians: how can I possibly fail so significantly when I’m trying so hard? I resolve to do better; a new tradition is born.

After a few days of books and bocce by the ocean, someone googles local attractions and we make our way to Botany Bay—a pristine, otherworldly place. Designated as a 3,000-plus-acre heritage preserve, Botany Bay includes a stretch of undeveloped beach known for its “boneyard” of dead trees and driftwood. The stark silhouettes of these trees, weathered and whitened from years of saltwater, charge the landscape with a remarkable energy. Other visitors were there, but we didn’t pay them much mind. The place is too wondrous and solemn, a church sanctuary for sea gulls. Botany Bay’s vast sprawl also houses the remains of Sea Cloud Plantation and accompanying historical displays, although we usually spend all our time on the shore. It’s the kind of place our parents would have taken us—free, educational, historical, made for a packed picnic lunch—although, of course, our parents are not here.

My husband’s family has been vacationing in the same Myrtle Beach condos for over 30 years. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, girlfriends—all are welcome. After dating him just a few months, I was warmly initiated into their family beach traditions, which have not changed in decades. The 7am trek down to the beach to claim a spot and install what feels like one thousand beach umbrellas in the sand. The daily lunch of crab-spread sandwiches and snickerdoodles—both of which have been prepared ahead of time and transported down to Myrtle Beach in ancient Tupperware. The nightly dinner routine, wherein we set off down The Strip, freshly showered and sandaled, in search of the same chain restaurants we visit every year.

For a while, I thought our way was better, as younger generations typically do. Even now, when I picture our lingering dinners on the screened-in porch or early morning shell-hunting expeditions with our sons, I feel a small flush of pride and a great thrill of anticipation. After all, Edisto is the family vacation we are building, not the one we were born into.

But what is family if not doing the same stuff with the same people the same way, over and over? Cooking epic dinners together in a humid beach kitchen is as much familial glue as an avocado-hued Tupperware full of crab spread. Don’t both bring us closer? It no longer matters if the expensive chain restaurant is good, if the shops are cheesy, if the food is authentic. What matters is that we’re here, all of us, again.

This summer marks our fourth trip to Edisto with the same friends who have been with us from the start. There will be four kids in tow, because somehow, we are onto our second child. Some of the easy, languorous rhythms from before are less effortless now, likely clogged up from the gallons of 50 SPF sunscreen we bathe our small children in every two hours. Once, I could go down to the beach with a towel, a book, and a drink in hand. Now I have a baby on my hip and a flotilla of plastic beach toys hanging off my shoulder.

And yet—in the midst of growing families and shifting schedules, the traditions we created by accident on our first trip have only become more cemented as What We Do at the Beach. I imagine it was this way for our parents, too. I don’t know if we’ll keep coming to Edisto every year, but if we do, I hope my boys will feel the island’s charms the way we do. It’s just as likely they won’t. Will they roll their eyes at our daily trips to the veggie stand? Will they find our big dinners on the porch to be a disappointing substitute for exciting vacation dinners out? Will they want to trade our quiet, shell-strewn beach for bright lights and tacky surf shops?

The line between rituals we love and rituals of love is so thin it disappears sometimes.

Every family falls into its own rhythm. Like our parents, we’ve found one that feels right to us. What we share though—what we all share—is a love for South Carolina’s coast. And although miles of shore stretch between their vacation spot and ours, the unchanging tide rolls in just the same.

Do you have a favorite vacation tradition? Tell me in the comments.

current status

reading :: “How Martinis Came Roaring Back in 2022” (Grub Street) // When my friend Kacie texted me this article, I hated it almost as much as I love martinis. It’s only been a few months since Kacie and I tried martinis for the very first time, and ever since, I have been really leaning into my ~ martini moment ~. Then I read this article and learned that everyone else is too (quickest way to pop an enneagram 4’s bubble). For me, this article is a reminder of why we write about food and bev. It’s never just a drink or just a trend or just a dinner—it’s culture, which is telling a bigger story about who we are and where we are and, sometimes, where we’re going.

cooking (and drinking) :: Here comes a combo recommendation because this pairing is unbeatable: Smitten Kitchen’s huevos rancheros plus Better than Advil, a margarita-adjacent cocktail jazzed up by a little pickle juice and hot sauce. I made this for brunch on a Sunday after church when we normally would have scrounged around for leftovers. The season of Lent, which marks Sundays as feast days or “mini-Easters,” did introduce a new rhythm of rest and celebration to close our week—a rhythm we’re trying to carry with us long past Lent.

loving :: Perfect Ribbed Tank Top // Word on the internet insisted this inexpensive tank top was great, but you gotta tune most of that stuff out. Then, on a whim, I tossed the bodysuit version of one in my cart. The first time I wore it, my husband said, THAT. That is your best neckline. And he was right—it is surprisingly flattering. The tank is soft, smoothing, and versatile. Also, it’s $8! Worth tossing in your cart at least.

Dark Matter, Calida Garcia Rawles, 2021.

reading :: “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid” (The Atlantic) // If you’ve ever felt despair thinking about the state of democracy, discourse, or shared cultural trust, this is the article for you. Jonathan Haidt (co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind) traces the fracturing of our country to a specific tipping point in time when the corrosive forces of social media began to negatively reshape our country and our connections with one another. He employs the Biblical story of Babel as a metaphor, noting: “We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past. But Babel is not a story about tribalism; it’s a story about the fragmentation of everything. It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families.” The outlook is bleak, but Haidt does offer a few actions we could take to turn things around. His essay is absolutely worth your time.

drinking :: lemonade in all its forms // Maybe you’ve forgotten how perfect a beverage lemonade is? Tart and sweet, bright and refreshing—it hits right every time, especially when it’s hot out. I wrote about a few lemonade upgrades here: a big-batch lemonade secret, plus some ways to flavor boost the base.

Untitled, Daniel Arnold

listening :: Segundo — Maluma. Is this song from the soundtrack for that rom-com J. Lo did with Owen Wilson? Yes, yes it is. But that fact doesn’t make the song any less sexy. / It’s the right time of year for old John Mayer (it’s almost always the right time of year for John Mayer). I like 2006’s Continuum and 2009’s Battle Studies best. / Verona (Stripped) — this stripped-down, vocal-focused version of one of Geographer’s best songs is gorgeous, plaintive. (“You call me all the right words / But the right words all sound so wrong / You say that I’m changing / Well I guess I will before long.”) / Every Time We Say Goodbye — Betty Carter. I can’t be the only one who watched The Parent Trap as a tween, heard this song, and thought dreamily of the future when I’d feel this way about some beloved. Real life proves less cinematic than my imagination, but the song more than holds up.

reading :: “the speed of God” (Alan Jacobs) // as someone who struggles to sit still and finds an enormous amount of satisfaction in crossing things off my to-do list, I found Alan Jacobs’ brief but dense notes about “moving at the speed of God” to be really thought-provoking.

reading :: The Church of Chili’s (GQ) // We went on a half-ironic, half-nostalgic double date to Chili’s a few weeks ago. Some of y’all didn’t understand why. I’d like to point you to this fun long read for explanation. Leaving the incredible lede here: “The history of America is a history of expansion—mostly westward, but also outward. A swelling of cities, in the manner of waistlines subject to too much salt. Population centers press beyond their intended boundaries—their rivers and mountains and highway belts—and spill into the great in-between. And when an American city spills into the great in-between, the way it usually works is first there's an office park, then there's a housing tract, and eventually there's a Chili's.”

the real feel

The grab-kiss doesn’t get enough action. I am not talking about a handsy kiss—that’s a different category entirely. Sexy but not sexual, the grab-kiss is the one where you reach out to suddenly grab someone and pull them into you or you gently grab both sides of their face or tilt their chin up or maybe even lace your fingers through their hair and tug, just a little. It’s passionate and tender, desperate and charming. And its powerful effect is underrated! Especially for those of us who have been together for a long time. I’m sure deploying this kind of kiss early in a relationship would be potent—but honestly, at the falling-in-love stage of a relationship every kiss is potent.

Where the grab-kiss can really do some work is in a marriage more than few years in, with many more years ahead. It is a little lightning bolt for your brain, a reminder that you share something bigger and older than the legos on the floor and the dishes in the sink and the meetings on the calendar. Still not sure what I mean? Here’s a masterclass in the grab-kiss. Not all kisses can or should be this variety any more than we should have crème brûlée at every meal. Life is long, days are full, and it takes all kinds. But I, for one, will never turn down crème brûlée.

last words from someone else

Until June — Buy a backup pair of sunglasses for the ones you will lose or scratch this summer, observe the trees in their full-leafed green glory, eat a dish of ice cream outside at dusk.