Kelly Beach may seem like an odd choice for this project (one that’s mostly dominated by either state beaches or publicly accessible points of shoreline access), primarily because it is a private beach -  but it happens to be five minutes down the road from my current student rental house in Bonnet Shores. Consequently, the soundscape of my everyday life  - not just of my lived experiences as a coastal dweller -  are dominated by the backdrop of this beach. 

 

Kelly is open only to Bonnet Shores residents, sitting on a shared coastline with the Bonnet Shores Beach Club - also a highly exclusive, super expensive private beach club. Consequently, the vibe is somewhat more closed off and less person-focused than the other coastal communities I’ve covered, particularly in the off-season when many of the properties in Bonnet are occupied by students like me. Much as I delight in the potential anarchy of a supposedly exclusive beach being overrun with undergraduates, I have found that this beautiful little gem of a beach is sorely underutilized by the resident students.

 

This sonic landscape is an interesting one, dominated largely by the homes around it. Of course, the waves, wind, and sand make up some of the soundscape - but in equal parts with traffic and pedestrians. I actually ended up leaving myself in this soundscape - by which I mean, I included some of the incidental sounds of my engagement with the act of field recording, in a meta nod to the fact that I am also part of the total soundscape as I go about the recording and creation of it. 

I chose Kelly Beach for this sonic self-portrait because it felt like the most authentic place for me to appear, five minutes from where I’ve spent the past two years and some of my most formative college experiences. If Narragansett anchors my adolescence and Rose Nulman Park shelters my childhood, then Kelly Beach sits at the cusp of emerging adulthood, its soundscape inextricable in my mind from academic-year living in Bonnet.