Why Here?

I moved into the first floor apartment of a gasping, hundred-year-old house on the fringes of Belle Harbor in February 2011, six months before Hurricane Irene and a year and a half before Sandy uplifted the boardwalk and thrust it into the glass facades of storefronts and apartment lobbies all along the peninsula.

I moved to Rockaway during a time of great personal tumult. It was a hurricane of my own making: a marriage ending, no job, a daughter starting kindergarten... I had to sculpt a new life, and for whatever reason, it had to be next to the ocean. Brooklyn was suffocating me with its alternate street side parking and its elder flower cocktails. While I like a fancy cocktail every now and then, like the dive bars I frequented, I was being priced out. Richer and richer families were moving in and having babies, gobbling up brownstones by the millions (of dollars) and making preschool acceptance rates as competitive as the Kentucky Derby.

I didn't know where to go that could fit within my financial and situational constraints. I felt pretty stuck and running out of time.

And then, one day, a dear friend drove me to Rockaway by way of the Memorial Bridge. I leaned my head against the window as we drove past the vast empty parking lot of Jacob Riis. It was the end of October and the sunlight was already sharpening its blades, readying for winter's low angles. But the sky -- it was so, so blue, a burlesque of voluptuous clouds lit up from behind and glowing around the edges. It was a revelation.  Could my mission, at least for the next year, be to seek peace and personal recovery in the the sun and the surf, the wind and the sand?

At that moment, I decided to move to Rockaway for real. I found an affordable apartment with a yard, a driveway, and a front porch. I gave it a year; that was almost a decade ago. And while yes, I gripe about the commute and the tolls, the day trippers and the summer parking, I cherish the evening breeze off the water, the shush of the waves from the Atlantic, the sunsets skewed over the peninsula, and the fact that my child has had the privilege to grow up both in the city and by the sea.

For some people, the beach is their booty call. For me, it's my true love; Rockaway is my soul mate. I am infatuated with its messy heart and crazy soul.  Sometimes I want to protect it, keep it a secret, but most of the time I want to share it with everyone I know.  That's why I made this magazine. To elevate its imperfections and celebrate everyone who's choosing to make this place their home.

I now live for the foggy mornings obscuring the froth of the breaking tide, the late September turn when the Montauk daisies bloom in sheer defiance of autumn. I was only hoping for a year of solace when I moved here. Instead, I somehow found home.