In Italian, the word bramare means, “to yearn for” or to “covet” or “crave”. I grew up spending summers beside the ocean and I’ve never lived more than twenty-five miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Folks on the Cape like to put carved signs up on their homes, with little words or sayings that remind them of why where they live is special. A lot of them say cute stuff like, “Lobster Caper”, or “Sandy Sheets”. That’s cool and all, but when it came time for my parents to put up their own sign they chose one word, you guessed it, bramare. To crave. This windblown little sandbar is something our hearts cannot live without. Sometimes it feels like salt water runs through my veins, that’s how much of a part of me sand and sea and wild ocean winds are. So you could say that moving to a landlocked country, even if it is arguably one of the most beautiful landlocked countries on the planet, is a little bittersweet.

There’s a lot of reasons to love the sea. For starters, it’s full of awesome stuff like crabs, Krakens, seaweed, and mermaids. But one of the biggest reasons I love it so much is because it’s the place where the rest of the world meets my home. Sometimes I like to sit on the beach and watch the tide go out, imagining all the amazing places those whirling currents could take me. Now I am finally answering that call.  The tide may bring me far away, but it will always bring me home again. I draw my strength from the sea and it will always be a part of me. No matter how many beautiful places I go, I’ll always feel the pull of the ocean tides bringing my heart back to a little spit of sand on the East Coast.

Awww, crap. There’s something in my eye.

I tend to mark most of the auspicious occasions in my life with music, and this moment is no different. So here goes, this is my playlist for leaving Cape Cod:

1) HUMANWINE, Dim Allentown Cove Pt. 1:

A kickass Boston band. A song about pirates! I used this in my house music when I directed The Tempest. Need I say more? I’ve already said too much.

2) Gaelic Storm, Cape Cod Girls

In the house I grew up in there used to be illustrated plaques on the wall that said, “Cape Cod Girls/ they have no combs/ they brush their hair with codfish bones”. I like to think I’m the type of gal who’d comb her hair with fish bones.

3) What nautical playlist is complete without a little Zeppelin? None. That’s a classic Robert Plant strut too. You’re welcome.

4) Sarah Blasko, Spanish Ladies

Let’s slow things down a little with this gorgeous little tune that I’ll walk down the beach listening to on my last day. And yeah, it is the song from Jaws.

5) Vampire Weekend, Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa. If loving hipster crap is wrong, in this case I don’t want to be right. I play this every time I drive down the Cape:

6) Dar Williams, The Ocean. Another great singer who got her start singing in T stations. Maybe I even saw here there in the 90s. I will listen to this and sob uglies every time I’m homesick:

7) Bjork, The Anchor Song. Picture it: The Netherlands, 1999. Little Miss Apple is on a semester abroad, wearing a mangled Muppet fur coat and raver pants and smoking too much weed, and listening this song when she’s anticipating missing Dutch Life and missing home all at the same time:

What would you add to your ocean love playlist?