Shiny Things

This is in France. I am not in France. But this is what I mean when I say that I felt as though I was floating inside a Monet. If I had let go of the Earth while gazing into this morning's sky, I would have ended up here. (The image is  The Cliff, Étretat, Sunset,  held by the North Caroline Museum  of Art,which is pleasantly ironic seeing as how I am *in* North Carolina.) OK, this caption has gone on long enough.  I'm trying not to lament that I have finally gotten my groove now that it is nearly time to leave the beach. I spent the first several nights here up late, mostly to spend time with my sister, who is a night person, including the night Z and I both stayed up so my sister could bleach streaks into Z's hair. These are vacation things. These are good. But I not a night person any more. The morning holds much more mystery and allure for me. Waking late, often second only to my sister, has been disorienting and slightly dissatisfying to me. Yesterday I managed ...

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea!* It was the afternoon of the second full day on Topsail. We had had plenty of beach time, plenty of World Cup viewing, plenty of deck sitting, reading, idle shopping, late night conversations and so on. I was boogie boarding in the surf with Z&O and David. The tide was almost high. The waves were getting bigger. It went in cycles: several big, gentle surges, followed by a couple small breaks, and then the ocean would pull back and back building up energy for a series of three or four tall curls. We would race each other to catch the wave, usually hitting it too early, lifted by the surge but left behind as the racing edge swept ahead. Every once in a while timing it just right, balancing just on the crest, born aloft by foam, speeding towards the beach. "Did you see how far I got?!" we would yell at each other. And sometimes trying to grab it too late, watching, watching as the wave reared up and the lip started to c...