Sand Dunes & Salty Air: A Coastal Love Letter

There’s something about this board that feels like a memory I never had—but somehow still know intimately. Sand Dunes & Salty Air isn’t just a collection of images, it’s a distilled feeling: the quiet ache of an East Coast summer, filled with sun-bleached porches, crisp linen dresses, and the muffled hush of waves behind closed eyes. It’s the soft clink of ice in a sweating glass, the faint scent of salt and sunscreen, and the feeling of pages sticking together in a paperback you’ve read a dozen times.

The aesthetic is deeply rooted in an old-world New England charm. Historically, it descends from a blend of coastal preppy style and maritime minimalism—what you'd find in vintage L.L. Bean catalogs, Ralph Lauren summer editorials, and faded photographs of seaside estates in Cape Cod. But this board isn’t about status or wealth. It's about the quiet elegance of having enough, of living in rhythm with the sea and the seasons.

You could call it “coastal grandmother” now, since the internet has given it a name. But it’s always been there. Meryl Streep chopping tomatoes in a pristine kitchen in It’s Complicated. Diane Keaton in a turtleneck in a Montauk house where every blanket is white and every vase has hydrangeas. It's a genre of living—curated, gentle, warm.

For me, this board serves as a mirror for the energy I try to pour into this site. The textures, the tones, the restraint—they’re all part of the same world I want to build here. I think of this website like a seaside scrapbook: vintage-coded, pixelated, soft-edged. It’s a virtual extension of that mood—where every GIF, every frame, every background is like a pressed flower in a diary from a summer long gone.

I’m drawn to the sense of pause this style offers. Historically, it echoes the legacy of slower living. Of women who gardened and journaled and wrote letters on thick stationery. Of homes with salt-stained wood floors and yellowed bookshelves full of poetry and maritime history. Of lives where beauty wasn’t performative, but incidental.

That’s the heart of it. This aesthetic isn’t about Pinterest-perfect lifestyles. It’s about noticing. Noticing the way light hits an old wicker chair. The way sand clings to a damp towel. The way a sea breeze makes lace curtains dance. It’s not loud. It’s not modern. But it’s honest.

When I look at the images in this board—whether it’s a weathered boat, a breezy room, or a bowl of peaches on a checkered table—I feel reconnected. To a version of myself that is softer, quieter, slower. To a kind of femininity that feels earned and grounded. To the legacy of women who made homes, rituals, and beauty out of what they had, by the sea.

This isn’t just an aesthetic I like. It’s a lifestyle I aspire to. Not for Instagram, but for me. For the comfort of rituals. For the hush between the waves. For the warmth of a handmade life.

And this page? It’s a love letter. To salt. To sun. To slowness. To everything I want my digital space—and my real life—to reflect.