Until 1990, I lived close to the ocean. I grew up learning to respect its sleeper waves, to navigate across and out of its riptides. I stood for hours in its foam and talked to friends year after year. I body surfed and Boogie Boarded. My friends and I would swim out past the breakers, near the pier and would ride the bus home at night sandy and gritty and sunburned. At night, after a shower, I would lie in my twin bed, on my Raggedy Ann sheets, and, as I drifted off to sleep, I would feel the undertow pulling on my feet.
I left the ocean in 1990, and did not return until 2005. This ocean is different. Though it shares the same name as the one I grew up on, this ocean is much colder, more turbulent. I can't imagine swimming out past the breakers. There's no pier to judge whether or not I'm drifting out too far. I don't picture feeling warm and buoyant, not wanting to leave, like I did in that Pacific. But that ocean also didn't let me drive on its sand, and let my dogs out the run their hearts out. That Pacific was often crowded, with people knocking into each other as the waves tumbled them.
Yet on days like today, I am at the beach again, barefoot. And I am wading in deeper and deeper, my body growing accustomed to the frigid water. I haven't worn a suit, and now I regret it. So I stay with the children, and watch them wonder at the way the water pulls back out to sea, burying their small feet as it goes.
I'll get out further, I know, as the summer goes on. But for today, it was enough to know that now my own children will go home with sand between their toes, tired from playing hard, digging holes to China, burying each other in the sand.
I know tonight that they'll sleep hard, with the sound of the waves crashing in their ears and the water still pulling at their feet.
Chez Ank under a blanket of white.
Through those trees, somewhere there's a river.
Can it be three summers ago already?
Amazing the things you can get if you bargain hard enough.
This was all her idea.
Work it, Mads!
Tap with an attitude.
The shortest is always on the top of the pyramid.
Jazz with Pom Pom!
She loves the camera.
And it loves her!
