The night before we leave for 30A never feels like a chore, even though it probably should. We’re cleaning the house and packing bags. Checking packing lists that I keep saved for every trip.

The trip began the second we backed out of the driveway. We started with fun road trip music, but somewhere around the first hour, we turned on an audio book – this time we enjoyed the full-cast version of the Harry Potter series – the car went quiet on its own, and the flat brown stretch of Texas highway gave way to tall trees and narrow two-lane roads. By the time we pulled up to the cabin in Broken Bow, the air had changed — cooler, greener, brighter, the kind of quiet that makes you notice how much noise you've been carrying without meaning to.

But every Summer, this particular sign comes back out. It leans somewhere in the kitchen, usually near the flowers I’ve switched to hot pink peonies in a blue striped pot for the season. The words on it read like a list someone jotted down when they were feeling particularly fond of the season: pool days, sunshine, ice cream, warm nights, fireworks, barbeques, boat rides, bonfires, family and friends.

The first morning of every coast trip, I wake up earlier than I mean to and stand on the balcony with coffee I didn’t make, and I watch the water do exactly what it did yesterday and will do tomorrow, whether I am watching it or not.

By five o’clock, the flatbread is cooling on the board, the linen napkins are folded loose on each plate, and someone has already pulled up a second chair. This is Memorial Day at its best.

We moved in on a Friday, and by the next Wednesday the house was beautiful — every light fixture the right finish, every wall the right color, every piece of furniture exactly where the floor plan said it should go. The movers and all the moving boxes and packing paper were out of the house … and yet, something was wrong. The house was beautiful – but it wasn’t ours.

On most days, 4:00 finds me in a conference room. Or a parking garage. Or somewhere on the stretch of highway between the office and home, watching the clock and recalculating how much of the evening is salvageable.

The turn onto the coastal road is the same every year — the light changes first, and then the air, and then the trees open into something that feels like an exhale. We haven’t arrived yet, but we can already feel the whole week ahead of us, slow and unhurried, the way it only is here.

A few years ago, we built a home in Katy. When we moved in, everything was bright and fresh. A new start.

The board goes out before anyone arrives. Not because it needs to - it’ll be fine on the counter for another twenty minutes - but because there’s something about seeing it on the table that makes the whole afternoon feel like it was planned for.

The pups wake me with a soft whimper and a nudge from next to my bed.