Lake Morning

The water is a deep, smooth indigo dappled with light. The firs hugging our porch catch the morning sun in their top most branches and throw us into shadow. There is a gentle, kissing lap of soft waves against the seawall, birds chitter off in the distance, the air seems almost heavy with the dark, earthy, balmy scent of fir.

Suddenly, the roar of a motor boat slicing through the water with startling swiftness splits open the dream, chasing an errant merganser caught fishing in too deep water.

Slippers Under Our Feet

This beach is littered with slipper shells. They are smooth and glossy; pink, grey, or stained with green. Flipped over, they have a funny half bottom; like a little slipper. Once, on a Florida beach that was thick with coquina shells, we were excited to find three of these. Here, they are washing up with each new wave, we crunch them under our feet.

Choosing

I chose when I tasted that first bite of pomegranate seeds mixed up with tamarind and hot pepper that the eager vendor scooped into your palm. "Taste this" you said, and offered me your hand. (I don't think I had noticed you before.)

The child doesn't get to choose, but I do, and have. Sitting on a sand beach listening to the waves slap in I see her building sand castles (dream castles) while you squat in the surf sifting through rocks carried in with the waves. You toss three into my lap. One is smooth orange shot through with streaks of silver gray, one brilliant pink, one transparent, glossy: a sea diamond. Squeezing the stones in my palm I lift my face and smile into the wind. Even in angry times, when your words pelt like sharp stones against my ears; even then I remember that I chose, and am still choosing. So I take the pretty, brilliant pink stone and place it atop the dream castle she builds in the sand. Smiling, she claps her hands. I do not tell her that in an hour's time it will be carried out with the tide.