It’s springtime down by the river; and the livin’ is, well, chilly. Still, things are still always easy when there’s river time in Fair Haven.
After a tease of spring warmth and bloom, the winter sting has pierced through again. A little river time on the Navesink, down by the Fair Haven Dock, always makes things toasty, though, shiver be damned.
River time reflection makes all cozy when cold takes hold. In this stark, frigid niche, all is warm, embracing. It will always take you in when life gives you the boot.
Take in the view and know that warmth is here, at home, where there’s always a friend. (And don’t forget to click on one pic to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy!)
The chill remains, with threats of snow this week. Then, the sun returns. Take a look at this week’s weather outlook for the Rumson-Fair Haven area from the National Weather Service …
Spring. It’s been long-awaited and it’s here. With it come signs of hope, growth, rebirth and fertility that was stifled by winter’s frozen grip. Stagnated.
Buds are beginning to bloom in sparse trees along the riverscape. Garden perennials are popping up with the sun. Bulbs about to pop with life are peering through remnants of the dead of winter. Abandoned laid eggs lie still in a half-made shriveled flower pot nest that a mourning dove ironically cast aside on the last cold day.
All comes back … to grow. To bring life and warmth back to the sparse riverscape, the yard, the flower pot nesting spot.
Sun up, signs of spring out. Take notice and soak it all up with the sun. Hope is here.
Take a look at our snapshots of little signs of spring above and take it all in.
**And don’t forget to click on one image in the gallery to enlarge and scroll! Enjoy!**
Interesting tidbit: Did you know that mourning doves have a habit of being terrible nest makers, but fabulous parents? True story. Ironic.
Here’s this week’s weather outlook for the Rumson-Fair Haven area from the National Weather Service …
Press “Play.” Sometimes light peering through stark, hazy darkness is a beacon to play time that’s drawing near. It can transport a daydreamer to past play, too. Warmth. Vision. Clarity. Contentment.
The pin spotlights scream silence — peace. They remind: There is a light to follow forward and back. Each spot shines a light on one memory at a time, bringing focus to the haze, bringing back the warmth. Each spot draws us to a brighter tomorrow, too. Each reminds: There’s a way out of the dark haze, forward or rewind. Either takes us back to the same place. Home.
When two iconic playtime scenes — an otherwise bustling iconic Victory Park or Barnacle Bill’s gathering haven — are somber and still, it’s then that one can see the power of place clearly. Feel it deeply. The more stark, the more profound. The more simple, the more black and white, the love of home.
Get lost in the light to find your own way home.
— Photos/Elaine Van Develde for R-FH Retro only (CLICK on one to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy!)
And lighter days are coming to the area. Here’s the week’s weather forecast, courtesy of the National Weather Service, for the Rumson-Fair Haven area …
Sometimes the warmth in a cold snap break isn’t just in the air. It’s in the place. And for many Rumson-Fair Haven area people, that place is the beach in Sea Bright. Always has been.
When life turns a cold shoulder, some Sea Bright time is that cozy niche the area kid in us crawls into for a bright memory snuggle, even if it’s only a moment. The power of place is the pull. It gives the hug, holds the warmth.
The view? It’s always bright, no matter the cool sting, its winter emptiness dotted with some of the happiest of scenes from any old RFHer’s youth. So, take a look back. Fill in the landscape. Let it bring you back to your chill play time in this little slip of peninsula where chillin’ is a smile back. Exhale. Smile. Ahhhhh …
Take a look for that glimpse back of your own. Take it all in. (And don’t forget to click on one photo to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy the view!)
Even when the Rumson river view is obscured by the fog, a blanket of snow and empty Barnacle Bill’s chairs are vivid reminders that there’s always a seat for you at an iconic spot back home.
It sees you. You see it. The descending pea soup sky never takes away the view. It gives you a close-up of the little things that matter most, like a chair waiting for its townie.
Each piece of home is where the comfort embraces with a hushed, welcomed coddle in the disquiet of the cold air pangs. Its love blankets like the melting snow, sopping up the home earth beneath the feet that always seem to anchor there, tugging like quicksand at the heart. This is one piece of home. One iconic spot. The quiet, the starkness beckon. They call you back. Always.
You hear and return to take a big bite … of that burger, the memories and that home feeling, ingesting all that’s good. Yum.
The fog has lifted. Here’s what’s going on with the weather in the Rumson-Fair Haven area heading into the weekend, courtesy of the National Weather Service …
** Don’t forget to CLICK on one photo in the above gallery to enlarge and scroll! Enjoy! **
— Photos/Elaine Van Develde exclusively for R-FH Retro
Serenading President Garfield on the Long Branch Boardwalk Photos/Elaine Van Develde
Sometimes when you’re looking for focus, you end up zooming in on a downright presidential moment.
It’s not every day that the lens happens to catch a little accordion music serenade of President Garfield’s statue on the Long Branch Boardwalk. What a classic moment made of the simplest of soothing pleasures — music. It looks like the president approves. I mean, he’s standing, frozen in amazement, you could say.
OK, so it’s not the Rumson-Fair Haven area, but it’s close enough when it’s a classic moment caught. Something like this takes you to the sunny side of a winter’s day. Yes, sometimes you just have to stop and listen for the music. That’s an executive order.
Anyone know what kind of accordion that is? It’s very old with exquisite detailing in the silver finish. If you had to guess, what song do you think he was or should have been playing?
While you’re pondering that, check out the weekend weather forecast from the National Weather Service …
Sometimes, the basics are the most meaningful. It’s pretty black-and-white. A night view from the Fair Haven Dock always anchors what really matters. It needs no color, no enhancement. Just the simple starkness, sky and moon.
Sometimes what really matters most is just finding the moon, taking in its night magic and chasing those beams. It’s far better than counting elusive sheep. Night time. River time. Best of times and sighs.
A real Goodnight Moon. Gaze and find in our river moon dance gallery.
(Click on one pic to enlarge, find the moon and scroll to the next. Enjoy!)
And while you’re moon gazing and chasing, check out the moody weekend R-FH area weather from the National Weather Service …
From the still of the night to the pristine blanket in the morning, that first glimpse of a new snowfall is a window into moments of peace and purity.
However short the untainted peek, the solace it offers is generous. Enduring. So, take in the untouched Fair Haven snow moments from night to bright sunlight from the yards of three — Susan Culbert (night), Andreea Fegan/Little Bites of Joy (morning), Chris Rodriguez (light) — and exhale.
Hold on to that serenity snippet while you shovel it. Then read all about the upcoming weather for the weekend.
(Click on one photo and scroll for a full view. Enjoy!)
And here’s the weather from the National Weather Service …
Perspective. It’s all about perspective, especially when it comes to a familiar riverfront scene in Rumson. No matter what way you look at it, it’ll light you up from inside.
So focusing on the sunset view from one simple holiday vantage point offers a closer look at being home for the holidays. Staying there, always in the heart.
This time, sitting at a high-top with a Barnacle Bill’s view through a wreath wraps it up — the gift. Sun down, lights up, the reflection is all about home and the little glints we will never miss if we keep the memories alive through our lone perspective — our view.
The flicker of even one light on a wreath’s full circle lens mesmerizes. It smiles and winks back with a bright flash. A glimmer of a memory gleams. It warms. It never blinds.
Seeing the light often means looking back, focusing on that one teensy, mammoth view of one moment in time.
Once upon a time, the best of teenage girlfriends guffawed over bad engagement pictures in the paper and awful boys. They nursed some coffee and a basket of fried zucchini sticks, satiated by the salty company. Shelling peanuts and rolling them in sea salt on their crumpled paper placemats, they mused about one day missing their misadventures, about coming home after college, about coming back to their table, to their time. They always came back, even when they could no longer sit together. One left at the table, the two still came back with the flash. The view focused, full circle, bright, never lost on either of them.
Look for yours … (click, enlarge, scroll) through the … wreath.
— Photos & reflective piece/Elaine Van Develde
There’s some light in the weekend weather forecast. Here it is, from the National Weather Service. Shine on, view …
Call it a fall for reflective river time. The effects are far-reaching, staying with you wherever you go, each ripple always reaching out past the reflection to bring you home.
River reflection. Ripple effect. It’s all about taking a closer look. Noticing the little things. The mirror image. The slightest crimp in the freeze frame that emanates from the wind’s whisper. It’s hushed secret-telling.
But it’s no secret. The pilings are anchored home. Each curl that you can see in the reflection’s blur will eventually reach the shore, bringing with it the focus in that reflective microcosm of change.
It’s what keeps us all studying that one mesmerizing ripple that reached us. The one that always latches onto our toes in the sand. The one that moves back out and in with the tide. The one that brings us back home and keeps us there in the ruffled clarity of what really matters. Where it all came from — the center. Home.
All it takes is one ripple to seek you out and find you, warmed by a crisp fall moment on the banks of the river in Fair Haven.
Take a look at the photo gallery above to remember what brings you back. (And click to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy!)
It’s always river time, butfall river days are dwindling. Here’s what’s in store for the next week’s fall weather from the National Weather Service …
When the sun sops up the fall clouds so it can peer through for a little glimpse back to summer, it’s time for river time.
Rowing, strolling, sitting … any way is the best way to move forward and go back to that warm niche that always has a place for someone in its heart. The place where, no matter what, that sun always manages to peek through and shed light on all those little big things that matter most — one ray at a time.
Any way to move back to that light on those river times is the way to go. And they went. They always do. And they hold onto it for a rainy day.
The rainy days and chill are coming back. But there’s never a damper on Fair Haven river time.
— Elaine Van Develde
Take a look (CLICK on one photo above and scroll. Enjoy!). Here’s what’s coming in those rainy, colder days ahead, according to the National Weather Service …
Benched. It implies punishment of sorts. Not when you’re parked on a time capsuled bench at the river on the Fair Haven Dock.
And when the daytime sun drenches the seat you pick, all that’s wrong with anyone’s world seems to melt through the cracks, lifting the light in the spirit to meet the one in the sky.
Call it high hopes. The soaring, soothing warmth of it all just doesn’t reach higher heights, as long as benched time is river time … soaking it up. Diving back into time, sopping up the comfort of those feelings linked to the memories down by the river. Not a bad one there. Benched.
(Click on one of the photos above to enlarge and scroll. Remember and enjoy!)
There will be lots of sun to sop up on a riverfront seat this week. Here’s the weather forecast for the Rumson-Fair Haven area from the National Weather Service.
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