It’s a tide every six hours, low water sand dunes and the basin fills up slowly into high,  but then sometimes you get a flood tide, more than you expected. Retreat to higher ground, or stay and feel its power, like now:   The sky is gray, the mist comes in slanted going south, beating the hell out of the northside breakers.   You can choose to stay inside, dry, or maybe peek outside and explore the wind, the mist, the waves.

But there’s always this life, the one you have to go back to, that is joy and sorrow and love and struggle, life that keeps us tethered to shore. Life that is not wrong.  So you got a little too close to the water and the waves took advantage of you in your jeans. Your bare feet were surprised the water was warmer than the wind and  you thought it might be fun to wade in, oh so far, but are you ready to swim in your jeans? Or will you wait for night and float away like Ophelia?  So now your jeans are full of sand and brine clinging to your ankles like little ones desperately desiring your gaze, your attention.

Who walks the beach in the rain when the barometer is falling and whitecaps are in charge, who will parse the sound of wave on rock vs wind in the pines, or tires on the interstate calling?

I’ll wear these jeans ankle damp because  I like how it feels, the nip and squall of little ones around the knees, turning our hair gray too soon, the ones we cannot excise, the ones we love and invite into our souls hoping they will find some solace and sleep there.   I accept the grit on my counter where I put my sandy thermos down. I don’t mind a little sand in my bed. There’s some in my hair, on my chest that blew in from 28 knots. It tells me I wasn’t afraid to go there. And the sound, the sound, is neverending.