The ocean is big, vast, I would say. Like this - whoosh - a wave! Another! And another! Waves, waves, waves!

The ocean is mischievous - bam - and your flip-flop is already floating away somewhere far - you barely have time to catch it.

The ocean is quiet today, and roaring tomorrow. It is life. It is a dream. It is the best medicine for everything. Recently, it has become a part of me.

"I can't imagine my life away from the water," Beth, the owner of a tiny American bakery on the Bethany coast, told me in the summer. And I wouldn't want to imagine it, but there is nothing else to do. Except to miss it, making promises to myself to return to this blue giant as soon as possible, and re-reading the summer notes, written in a hurry, from that very notebook for all occasions.

August, 2015: "Summer by the water is measured and calm. In the morning you shuffle to the beach with a bag of fruit, try to catch the first wave - naturally, you fail this mission - you scoop up a full pair of swim trunks with sand, lazily trudge to your towel, sprawl out on it like a jellyfish washed ashore, and then - the sun. Lots of light, in which you are literally drowning. A pleasant hum of voices all around. The sound of waves. Children building sandcastles. Children destroying them. Lifeguards yawning, waiting for their hour. A couple tossing a frisbee. An hour, two, three. You are completely relaxed. At peace. Your head is clear and free of anything unnecessary. There is you and the ocean, the ocean and you. And summer. Which you would like to catch, hold, put in a jar and savor by the spoonful in winter. In the cold and sadness."

I remember how I first saw the ocean. I rushed to it, making my way through bodies sprawled on the hot sand, stopped at the very water, carefully put my big toe towards the rolling wave – it was warm. It crossed my mind: "I'm home."

I came to the coast at every opportunity. In the morning – with a book, at night – with a paper box of quesadillas that I got after a late work shift. Alone and in the company of friends. And every time the same feeling of inner harmony covered me with my head, like a wave. Thoughts lined up in a coherent stream. I breathed deeply and measuredly. I felt. I lived. I dreamed.

Running ahead again, I will say that I worked with an amazing American family, or rather, with a small part of it – Beth and Harvey. Beth is the owner of the bakery I mentioned above, Harvey is her twenty-year-old son. Together they made amazing things, for which Americans lined up in long queues in the mornings. But more on that later.

Sometimes Beth affectionately called Harvey "my beach boy": he was a crazy surfing fan and was in constant anticipation of waves, which are a rarity on the East Coast.

If I remember Harvey, I remember him sad. At the end of the summer, despite the end of the season, we had to work incredibly hard: the kitchen, the blazing grill, 1 day off a week – the guy was exhausted, and when I asked Beth what was the matter, she said that "my boy is done with all that stuff." It was true.

But one day I saw him differently. It was August, the middle of it. In the middle of a shift, Harvey answered a phone call with his usual calm "hello", then suddenly his face changed, he beamed, shouted something into the receiver, rushed to Beth, asked her something just as quickly, and, without waiting for an answer, flew out of the bakery like a bullet, waving his hand at us.

Later it was explained to me what happened. That day there were huge waves in Bethany that he just couldn't miss. "My twins grew up by the beach, they can’t live without it," Beth told me, "so I never blame Harvey for leaving the place earlier when there are waves."

For some – gold mountains, for some – a chocolate factory, and for some – waves. To each their own. As for me, I realized a long time ago that "in my heart I belong in a house by the sea."