Lucy and I headed north up the beach on our walk this morning for three reasons. I wanted to go the opposite way from yesterday; I wanted to start into the wind so that it would be at our backs on the return; and I wanted to explore that section of oceanfront that used to be "ours" when we lived here over 30 years ago.
We lived in four places just a couple of blocks off the beach in the stretch from 47th to 58th Streets. The biggest change was that the "new" Cavalier is gone, demolished to make way for some multi-million dollar homes, and a few of the houses that line the way were different, but the beach was pretty much the same: wide and empty in the way I used to love it in the off-season.
We walked all the way to 58th, and before turning around I headed to the trashcan at the foot of the walkway from the street to dispose of a bag of Lucy's. Up there the seagrass and dunes cut the wind, and I remembered some of the cold days I came to a little windbreak right here where the warmth of the sun did not have to compete with the frigid ocean breeze.
The sky was impossibly blue, like today, and the muffled surf was a lullaby as I lay on the warm sand and breathed the salt air. The light was white, so white I could still see it even with my eyes closed. And time was suspended, then like now, and so now like then, I lay down and closed my eyes.
We lived in four places just a couple of blocks off the beach in the stretch from 47th to 58th Streets. The biggest change was that the "new" Cavalier is gone, demolished to make way for some multi-million dollar homes, and a few of the houses that line the way were different, but the beach was pretty much the same: wide and empty in the way I used to love it in the off-season.
We walked all the way to 58th, and before turning around I headed to the trashcan at the foot of the walkway from the street to dispose of a bag of Lucy's. Up there the seagrass and dunes cut the wind, and I remembered some of the cold days I came to a little windbreak right here where the warmth of the sun did not have to compete with the frigid ocean breeze.
The sky was impossibly blue, like today, and the muffled surf was a lullaby as I lay on the warm sand and breathed the salt air. The light was white, so white I could still see it even with my eyes closed. And time was suspended, then like now, and so now like then, I lay down and closed my eyes.
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