Lord Kayburger Wisniewski's Backyard: From the Haunts of my Yout: 2

From age 4 on, one constant in my life has been the beachclub. It's not a fancy club. A place with a big wooden swordfish over its entrance is never going to be chic. It is a comfortable club. For me, it's always been just right.

It has a huge pool, here semi-empty during adult swim. My first year swimming in it, I was too small to touch bottom. Here's a little girl having an early lesson in bravery. I feel for her.

There are bathhouses and cabanas and lots of boardwalk. Everything is built out of wood and covered in about 20 layers of white, grey or bright aqua paint. And after 10 days of opening, everything needs another 20 layers.

The bathhouses are around the pool; the cabanas face the dunes with a bit of sand in front of them, which makes a great place for kids to play.

And here is my Mom reading.

Part of what I love about the ocean side is its spare beauty. When clubs or houses get too opulent they get in the way of that beauty. This club does not do that.

And of course there is the ocean. Which is the point of the whole thing. The wildest thing on earth.

There is something about the salty spray, the cool dunk into the freedom of lessened gravity that makes me almost unspeakably happy.

I also love beach walks. I walk eastward towards a big rock
along a jetty where I've been meditating since my 20s. In the pic below it's the one on the left that sticks up like a chair. For some reason its name is Philip.

Further on is the house where I learned to play poker (and much else.) I stop about there, turn around and come back, since if I go on I will run into the crowd from the next club.

All in all a pretty simple world, but one I have affection for, will always have affection for, even though I do not live there anymore.

When you face the wide ocean, you can't ignore its sublimity. It seeps into you--the wildest, most beautiful thing on earth. It's an outburst of joy, salty, spare and jubilant.