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Welcome back to The Bend!
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The Bend follows a simple rhythm each week. The Eddy Line opens with a one-line thought or
observation, something short enough to remember but worth thinking
about. What the Current Pulled Toward dives a
little deeper into where the previous week’s energy went, whether that’s
a project, a partnership, or a personal lesson learned. Signal Fire highlights a person, place, or initiative
that deserves some attention. From the
Field, shares a small anecdote about the broader outdoor
recreation economy from Oxbow’s non-profit arm, the VA
MTNS Outdoor Collective. And One Thought Worth
Sitting With closes things out with a brief reflection or quote
that will hopefully help guide you through whatever you may be dealing
with.
It’s part journal, part field note, and hopefully
something that makes you pause for a moment before diving back into the
current.
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“We don’t remember days, we remember
moments.”
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What the Current Pulled Toward
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This week the current pulled toward
taking stock.
I’m currently in Duck with my family, a place we visit this
same time year after year. This particular vacation, though, feels
different. It is the first one since my father-in-law died. Duck was his thing.
He
loved being here with us. The trip, the routines, the time together. His
absence is noticeable in both expected and unexpected ways. There are
the obvious moments when you know someone is missing, followed by
smaller ones that catch you without any kind of warning.
It’s no secret that grief occupies our familiar
places. It also changes how you see the people
who are still sitting beside you. I spent much
of the week leading up to this trip taking stock of family; of the
moments we create together; and of how easily time can pass while we’re
busy waiting for something else to happen.
There will always be another deadline or another project or
another problem begging for our attention. I’ll be the first to admit
that I’ve spent plenty of vacations keeping one eye on my phone and
convincing myself that being physically present was close enough. Hell,
I’m doing it right now just by writing this newsletter. I swear I’m
trying to do less of that. Case in point, yesterday I left my phone at
the house while we were on the beach. I was without it for a whole four
hours! 😝
As you can imagine, none of
this is coming from someone who has mastered being present. I still
catch myself mentally moving ahead to next week or replaying something
from the week before. It’s been especially difficult this week because I
start the new job very soon and I’m very excited about it. But loss has
made me more aware of how much life happens while our attention is
somewhere else.
Taking stock doesn’t
require some dramatic reinvention, though. It could be something as
simple as noticing who is around the table or staying a little longer on
the beach. It could be listening to a story from your son that you’re
nearly certain you’ve already heard several times over. I think my
favorite is just letting the moment remain ordinary while understanding
that even the simplest of things won’t always be available to
you.
The pictures we hang onto rarely
capture the complicated parts of a life. Instead, they capture dinners
and birthdays and vacations and people squinting into the sun. All the
fun moments that may have felt routine when they happened, but then
become the ones we keep returning to. The picture in this section is one
of those moments. It’s a staple pose of all the grandkids with Dada.
This year it’s replaced with a heart made from two cousins.
My father-in-law understood something about this
place. He knew the value of bringing everyone together, returning to
familiar traditions and making room for another week by the
water.
- Mike.
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This week’s Signal Fire goes to the families who
make time for one another.
Not every
family vacation involves a beach house. Some take the shape of a weekend
camping trip, an afternoon paddle, a walk around the neighborhood park,
or a picnic under the same pavilion you’ve used for years. The destination isn’t the point.
What stays with us are the conversations between
destinations and the card games around the table. It’s the annual
traditions that become so familiar we hardly notice them while they’re
happening. It’s the stories that somehow get funnier every time they’re
told.
Parks, beaches, trails, and
public spaces have always been about more than recreation. They’re all
part of a community’s social infrastructure and they give us places to
slow down long enough to reconnect with the people we love.
Years from now, most of us won’t remember exactly
what we spent on a vacation or how many miles we drove to get there. But
we’ll remember who was there with us.
We’ll also remember who wasn’t.
And we’ll remember being grateful that, for a little
while, everyone found their way to the same place.
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A week at the beach may feel like a pause from
the economy. But along the coast, it’s a major part of it.
NOAA estimates that coastal tourism and
recreation directly employ over 2.5 million
people, generate roughly $90.6 billion in annual wages and
contribute about $207 billion to the nation’s
gross domestic product. Once supplier purchases
and household spending are included, the sector supports over four
million jobs and contributes an estimated $426 billion
to GDP.
Those figures
are built through familiar vacation decisions:
- A rental house for the week.
- Coffee before the beach.
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A kayak or paddleboard reservation.
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Dinner at a local restaurant.
- An
afternoon inside a gallery or shop when the
rain arrives.
None of
those purchases feels particularly significant on its own. Together,
though, they sustain the people and businesses that make coastal
communities places we return to.
While
the beach itself may be free, the experience
surrounding it supports an entire economy.
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This edition also happens to go out on my wife’s
birthday!
Laura makes everyone feel welcome wherever she is.
She’s thoughtful without needing recognition, incredibly generous with
her time, and endlessly patient with the people she loves (I should
know…).
Our family is better because of her, and so am
I.
Happy Birthday, Leo. I hope you know how deeply you’re
loved.
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One Thought Worth Sitting With
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This week’s theme: Taking Stock.
“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that
we waste much of it.“
-Seneca
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