Reuniting Bruce With His Nook

Loquacious Cabana Boy (a.k.a my husband) and I like to drink our morning coffee outside on the deck on days when we have the time to actually sit with our coffee. It’s just one of those things we try to do, even if it ends up being only five minutes of slow at the beginning of a day that will then be fast for the duration. Given our beautiful weather here, we’ve been able to do this almost year round.

However, in the summer, it can get a tad sticky if your coffee is not imbibed at the crack of dawn. That Carolina summer sun gets quite warm, quite fast. I still remember the first summer we were here, when some of our relatives from the Midwest came for a visit. We were all really in vacation mode, so we got up late the first morning and went out on the top deck for our coffee. We all sat there for a few minutes, taking in the view, while beads of sweat began forming on our foreheads.

My relatives, from an area of the Midwest that is a little cooler and a little less humid than Chicago, were clearly getting uncomfortable but trying to be polite about it. I vaguely remember debating about whether to suggest going back in the house, where we could drink our coffee in the coolness of our air-conditioning, or whether to leave it alone, since our relatives might still rather sweat it out outside, given they only had a short time to be near the ocean.

That’s when one of them, who shall be called “Bruce” because that’s his name, came up with an idea.

“Let’s move to the lower deck where it’s shaded. That way we can enjoy the ocean without the sun beating directly on us.” Our lower deck is covered by our upper deck, so large parts of it are shaded and one part of the lower deck is particularly more shaded since the sun is also blocked by the descending stairs.  This “nook” is where we ended up that morning, thanks to Bruce.

Sure enough, it felt like the heat dropped 10+ degrees instantly, and we were able to enjoy both our coffee and the view. Actually, my relatives are exceedingly nice people, so for all I know, they were still miserable and just acted enthusiastic out of deep-seated politeness. However, it felt notably better than the top deck had, so “The Bruce Nook,” the area of our deck where we sat, was officially born. We joked about it, but after he left, the name stuck.

“Are we having coffee on the Bruce Nook?” my husband and I now ask each other as summer approaches each year. Some people have exotic-sounding domestic extensions like terraces, cabanas, or pool houses. We have the Bruce Nook. That’s just the kind of people we are, you know, trying to bring back quirky in our own special way.

Bruce and his entourage have visited multiple times since then, but it’s been two or three years since the last time he’s been here. So it was with great joy that we were able to reunite Bruce with his nook last weekend when he came for a visit.

Bruce is an affable fellow, with a penchant for neighborliness, but a disinterest in the limelight, so he did not appear live in the Bruce Nook for the photo op.

So here’s the nook, without the Bruce. It’s nothing fancy; it’s just a nook with chairs and a small table that are all entirely kid-proof, our biggest priority when accessorizing large parts of this house originally. But it has served us well over the years, shading us from the summer sun, protecting us from light rains even, as we caffeine-up by the Atlantic.