With another season of The Sun officially upon us, my heart overflows with thanks to our readers, our friends, and especially our advertisers for their part in the creation of what some Sun supporters call ‘a little piece of heaven’. Because sharing each heavenly, Wildwood moment is what we here at The Sun naturally do, I invite you to reminisce as you flip through pages of homemade happiness in the stories and photos compiled for your reading pleasure.
May The Sun briefly cause time to stand still. Thanks in part to the magic of photography, we, too, can stand still, pause for an instant and capture each memory-in-the-making. For years to come, we can remember the fun we had when the flash went off. Our photographs taken by the sea make for the best memory keepers; happy reminders of bygone days that offer us an enduring, wistful glimpse back in time to unhurried moments spent with family and friends.
There’s something very special about summertime at the beach; particularly here in Wildwood by-the-Sea. Whether we are locals or summer folk, as our treasured featured photographs convey, we are all drawn here. Something holds us here, to enjoy our own personalized rituals and shore customs year after year! Just as the sky is so much bluer at the beach, likewise people tend to be so much happier and life is more wonderful.
Because the most introspective observations in life bear repeating, I’m reminded of thoughts summarized in a former issue of The Sun . . .
Being at the beach allows us to congregate around one of the most profound of all natural phenomena: a line where the continent ends and a giant stretch of water begins. The beach is basically the end of the world; when we are standing on it, it’s hard not to feel a primitive connection to all the generations of seashore lovers who have been drawn to the same edge. When we swim in the ocean, we do it, not just to cool off, but to commune for a while with its wild, eternal, mysterious vastness. The salt water and sunshine have a mood altering, mermaid-like effect on me, personally. It’s like an altar (baptism) at which being immersed is the most natural feeling of closeness to God’s creation there is.
This summer, as you sit happily facing out to sea, each in your own blissful beach chair, digging little holes with your feet, remember the gifts that come from the sea and the gratitude that bestows a reverence in us that forever changes our perspective on the world.
As we welcome Summer, may you be forever changed as you stand beside the ocean, may your hearts overflow with endless summer days and may this copy of The Sun by-the-Sea knock your flip flops off!
Whatever that mystical quality is deep within our soul that draws us to the Wildwoods, may it hold us here forever and may it inspire us to grab hold of each picture-postcard moment spent by the sea.
Welcome Back Summer!
Dorothy McMonagle Kulisek