Pre-Beach

Have you ever sat on a beach? If you're reading this in the month of February or March, in the year of 2020, chances are, you have. Because you know me. And most everyone I know has sat on a beach at least once in their lives, more probably like 100 times. 1,000 times. But that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m sitting on a beach in the month of February in the year of 2020. To be fair, I’m actually not sitting on a beach, but at my computer, 30 miles from the beach. Tomorrow I will go there, though, and today I am practicing for what I will write. I will write about sitting, and beaches. And most probably about the wind, because it will be very windy on the beach in February. And the sun is supposed to be shining tomorrow, so I will write about the sun and how there are no clouds because the February wind has blown them all away. Despite this, the ocean will be gray. Steely gray, and dark. It’s the Atlantic, you see. Dark and gray and steely-eyed. If you fly over top of the beach like a bird, you will see all of the sharks swimming around in the depths of the ocean, not very far off the coast. As children we used to get up early and swim out as quickly as possible to the sand bars that would appear before they disappeared. Our own private beach, except for the sharks.

Probably tomorrow I will write about something ephemeral, like the heart and its desires. Then again, maybe I won’t, and that will be refreshing for me, to write and think about something other than my own insides.