A Year-Round Guide to Franklin and Nantahala

The list is a world unto itself. The list contains multitudes. The list is the vacation. In the beginning, there was the list. No. None of that is true. In

Rosemary and Goat Cheese Strata

The list is a world unto itself. The list contains multitudes. The list is the vacation. In the beginning, there was the list. No. None of that is true. In

Shore Things

Illustration of family walking to the beach with with packing lists along the way

The list is a world unto itself. The list contains multitudes. The list is the vacation. In the beginning, there was the list. No. None of that is true.

In the beginning, my dad made the list. It was, and to this day remains, in a burgundy spiral-bound notebook, half-page size, blue-lined paper. It lives in my parents’ pantry, unless it now lives in the office, which was once my brother’s bedroom. The list is in my father’s crabbed handwriting, all caps. The list is repeated every year. New page, new list, same list, mostly. The list is not just a grocery list. The list is how you get to the beach.

My list, our list, dates back to around the time my oldest son was born. It’s written on cardstock. Full page. The year is in Sharpie, the list in pen. I keep the list, all the lists. I take last year’s list and this year’s list — at least. Last year’s list has the stuff we took last year, and then also the stuff we discovered we needed, the stuff we forgot. This year’s list has all that stuff, but what if I missed something? Bring all the lists, is where I land. Binder clip. Slide them in next to the driver’s seat. The list will save you. The list will set you free.

• • •

It is because I don’t want to wake up. Something in me cuts free of the wider world when I’m at the beach. The mortgage drops away, and the faculty meetings, and mowing the yard, and even the dogs, and what I want to do is surf with the boys all morning and read all afternoon and move the chairs only for the tides and go in for supper only when we must and come back down for the sunset and do nothing else, not ever, not at all. I do not want to have to go to the store for milk, for goggles, for Tylenol. If I’m off the beach, in the car, on the street side of the house or condo, I break free of the dream. We do not go out to dinner. We do not go play miniature golf. If it doesn’t obviously need stitches, we do not seek medical attention. We are at the beach. We are gone. We are very, very out-of-office. This email does not find us well, because it does not find us at all.

• • •

The list changes, of course. Linens, depending on where we’re going. We used to have a Pack ’n Play on it. Used to have diapers. We still bring diaper cream, because it works wonders under a rash guard. Last year’s list catalogs how much sunscreen we used. This year’s list has kid books on it. Coffee. Filters. Wine. Solo cups. Good knives. Cutting boards. Surf wax.

illustration by James Bernardin

We bring quarters for laundry, melatonin for kid sleep. We bring night-lights. We bring a DIY blackout curtain situation because we want the kids to sleep through sunrise. So many cords, so many chargers, though screen time changes at the beach — they’re on at midday, peak sunburn time, instead of morning and night. Morning and night, they’re in the pool, in the ocean.

Ice, last year’s list reminds us. Pick up ice on the way in. Bring celery seed. Bocce. A note on the 2015 list, from when our older son would have been barely 5: “So we are spinning in the afternoon because the earth is turning, and it’s almost nighttime? And are we dizzy the next day because we spinned around the other day?”

• • •

Oak Island, Kure, Carolina, Atlantic, Duck. Whichever you frequent, do your shopping only once, the list says, and do it on the way in. Here is how many gallons of milk. The kids are old enough now to help us in the store, and they go running off for sugary cereals, for sandwich meat, for chips and cookies we only buy for this trip. Hit the seafood place last, wedge the cooler into the car alongside boogie boards, surfboards, chairs, umbrellas. We were so full one year that my wife said, No, no more, let’s buy a van. We bought a van for the beach. For the list.

The vacation starts about a week before we leave, when I get out a new piece of cardstock. The boys have to be home. Are you starting the list? they ask. Can we help? Are you putting skimboards on it? Shovels? My Indiana Jones hat? Our Hawaiian shirts?

Yes, all that goes on the list. Go get your apartment clothes together, I tell them, the term of art we use for the pajama pants and long sleeves we wear when we’re not on the beach. Grab a baseball cap for your mom.

What else? they want to know. I check the list. Hoodies, I say. Flip-flops, I say. Stuffed animals, I say, checking last year’s list, hoping that one never falls away. Even when it does, though, I’ll still carry it with us. I will always bring all the lists. There is only the list, only the beach. The list will save you. The list will set you free.

This story was published on Jun 24, 2024

Drew Perry

Perry teaches writing at Elon University. His first novel, This Is Just Exactly Like You, was a finalist for the Flaherty-Dunnan prize from the Center for Fiction, a Best-of-the-Year pick from The Atlanta Journal Constitution and a SIBA Okra pick. His second, Kids These Days, was an Amazon Best-of-the-Month pick and was named to Kirkus Reviews 'Winter's Best Bets' and 'Books So Funny You're Guaranteed to Laugh' lists.