It’s hard to picture what my life would have been like if I’d be raised in the midwest without ever having seen the ocean except for the occasional family vacations or trips with friends. Much of my life has revolved around the small beach community in which I grew up. Birthday parties, school events, sports ceremonies, dances, days spent with friends and family have all linked back to the small crest of Long Island Sound that splashes against the edges of East Lyme, my sleepy New England hometown.

With the ebb and flow of the waves came the rise and fall in the volume of traffic clogging the streets. New Yorkers coming to their summer homes on the shore, inlanders coming to breathe in the sweet salty air, families busing vans full of sun burned and sandy kids to the numerous sweets shops up and down Main Street. And then, in the fall, the streets quiet again, with only the not so distant memories of sand castles and sun bathing lingering in the crisp autumn air. Every year, the same rush of summer and hush of winter.

On a particularly warm day during a recent trip home, I went and sat down by the boardwalk. The sun was shining, there were barely any clouds in the sky and the water was calmly lapping against the sand. It was as if it were summer again (just minus the hoards of people).

The beginning of the Boardwalk in downtown Niantic, CT.

The beach is called Hole in the Wall, its only entrance being through a walkway underneath the train tracks that run down the shoreline from Boston to DC. The park in the background is McCook Point Park, obscuring the neighboring beach of the same name.

It was amazing to see how little had changed since the summer prior. There were less people, sure, a slight coolness to the air, of course, but it was the same. The people had come and gone, just their footprints left in the sand, but the beach, even in the winter, was as it always had been. Every year, new people lay their blankets down on the sand at McCook’s; every year, there are new faces, people I don’t recognize. It’s strange to see the people change, but to see the places always stay the same. Sure, there’s a new pub on Main Street, a new grocery store on Chesterfield Road, a new boutique clothing store growing out of a lot that was once occupied by a mom and pop fish shop, but the beach, it’s always remained unchanged.

After a while at the boardwalk, I climbed the path up to the park and down on to the small rock cliff that hangs over the beach. It was surreal sitting on those rocks, remembering when I had last been there, in that exact same spot, looking over the water. It was over five years ago, on the morning before I graduated high school. But there I was, now in the last semester of graduate school, watching that same ocean break upon the same rocks. So much of me had changed, yet so little of this place had. It was comforting sitting there, feeling as if time had almost stood still. It was comforting knowing that so much of my life can and will change, but that the town, the beach where I grew up and made the memories that have helped shape me into the person I am today, will remain constant.

The people had changed. I had changed. But the place had stayed the same; the beach had stayed the same.