Sunday, June 10, 2007

Pictures Worth a Thousand

I've been away. I do so love to go away! This time I went to a magical place called: The Beach. They have the best stuff there! Sand, waves, sunshine, birds, shells, crabs, clams, M&Ms, books, stars, outside showers, long walks.... I like this picture of a mess of clams we dug up from the marsh... because when I look at it, I can smell them. It's weird. I also like this picture of baby toes in the sand because when I look at it, I can feel the sand on MY toes. And in my bathing suit. And in my bed sheets. And in my hair. You can never be free from sand at the beach. But it's OK, because it reminds you: I'm at the BEACH! I'm AWAY! And you feel smug and superior to all those poor saps back at home who have no idea what they are missing. I also very much like this picture of the sunset over the salt marsh, which was the view from our back door. Sure, it looks like a boring picture of a daily occurrence that you've seen a million times but when I look at it...I can feel the heat of that sun, which spent all day gathering itself oppressively outside our door. I can hear the tide coming in and feel the wind rushing the sun down: C'mon, it's time to go now! Bye! Bye! I can't see them, but I'm pretty sure a thousand little crabs have rushed out of their holes in unison to wave a one-claw salute to the sun: See ya tomorrow, See ya tomorrow! And behind me in the house, the sliding glass door opens and closes, opens and closes and there is the sound of children running back and forth between the sunset and the loud ocean on the other side of the house. They are tired and bickering and at their wits' ends, but there's "one more thing" (there's always one more thing!) that must be done before crawling into sandy sheets and literally passing out with exhaustion. Maybe a ghost crab hunt out on the beach or one more round of ice cream cones. One more book. And every parent in the house has got his or her mind's eye trained on the hour after this one, when we can go outside with adult beverages, listen to music from "back in the day," look at the stars and talk about what our lives were like before we knew each other and before we knew these strange creatures called Our Children. Yep, pictures are indeed worth a thousand words!

1 comment:

somepinkflowers said...

there you are,
i had lost your link
and was missing snaps of the girls!

aren't days and nights
at the beach the best!
you might not be aware of this...
but EVERYTNIHG you eat
at the beach
has NO CALORIES!

keep that in mind
for your next trip....

:-)