David is absorbed in Vanity Fair, and Noah is in the other room. For all intents and purposes, I am free to sit here at the table and write what I like, without interruption or question.

* * * * *

It's not easy to forget that we're nearly on the ocean here. Hard to forget anything like that when you sit at the dinner table, facing the window, and the breeze that comes over you was over the water just moments before. It smells of the sea, like salt and fish and fresh humidity. Coming from the dryness of Phoenix, I rejoiced; I could feel the skin of my lips and hands beginning to relax even just a few minutes after getting out of the car.If I am still, and listen, I don't even have to walk to the beach to hear the surf. it is the ever-present whisper that underlies all other sounds in this apartment. They don't hear it any more, the inhabitants of this apartment, no more than they smell the tang of the sea when they open their windows for lunch. For me it is as new as it is intoxicating.

The ocean.

Oh, yes.

This morning marked the third time in my life that I have seen such a thing. My goal is to see as much of it, as often as possible, for the week that I am near it.

"We don't have much sand in Alabama," I said as we walked toward the surf for the first time. I wore my oldest jeans and my sandals, bought almost expressly for this trip.

My sandals dangled from my thumbs as I made my way to the water. It took a few minutes for my feet to relearn the strange half-walk, half-paddle it took to move through ankle-deep sand.

We came to the water forty minutes after high tide, and the closer we got to the surf, the deeper my feet sank into the sand. When an unusually high wave caught me unawares, I was ankle-deep in sand, unable to move my feet in time to escape the cold onrush of water, and left shrieking, arms outstretched, as my jeans were soaked halfway to my knees.

They are now my beach jeans.

It is - oh! - how do I explain this to you when you aren't here with me? - tranquil. Amazingly so. How else do you describe the feeling of having nothing between you and an ocean's worth of water but the sand between your toes?

Noah says he is amazingly happy here. I understand this. In a place like this, happiness comes to you like ocean spray, as gentle of a coating as it is an insistent one.

On its way to me, the breeze ruffles the feathers of the palm trees and rattles the vertical blinds of the front windows. It is colder today, and the higher winds are causing whitecaps on the other side of the street.

When I next walk across the street, I'll need to take my jacket.

"Your eyelids grow unbearably heavy. They begin to drift closed, almost of their own volition, and the last thing you see before you close your eyes is the watch, blurred soft and indistinct by your eyelashes. You feel your body relaxing, starting first with your toes, and moving up your body, one muscle at a time, until even your face is too relaxed to smile.

"Now, open your eyes, dear. Open your eyes and tell me where you are."

You say…* * * *

My eyes are opening. I'm on…it feels like a towel. Oh. It is a towel, and there's sand on it. I'm lying on my stomach. My arms are crossed, and when I opened my eyes, my head was lying on top of my arms.

There's a pen in front of me. When I pick it up, the metal is hot from the sun. It must have been quite a while since I picked it up.

Funny. The air smells…different here. Like…salt water. Oh. I know where I am now. This is the Gulf of Mexico. It's late afternoon, and we're on a beach.

I look up. I am facing the surf. The waves are crashing directly in front of me. I don't know how I know, but I know the tide is a bit rough for swimmers right now. The waves are cresting over into perfect little pipes when they hit the sand, and the waves are swirling up the beach—clear water and white, frothy foam.

I'd always heard about 'sea-foam,' but never pictured it until now.

The sand is white. Mostly. It is speckled with bits of broken shells rubbed smooth and soft by the action of sand and water. The tide is slowly coming in, marching up the packed sand to a line, maybe twenty feet ahead of me, marked by driftwood.

If I'm not careful, I'll burn. But wait—my skin is sticky, and smells of sunblock. To my right is a small blue bottle of—yes, sunblock. I'm wearing a cap, too, so my scalp won't burn. Normally I can't stay in the sun like this, but just this once, I think I will.

Oh. There are things sticking in the sand in front of my towel. They look like…oh, they're postcards. That must be why I've got a pen on my beach towel. I pull one postcard out, dust it off, and catch it right before the wind blows it away. No wonder I stuck the end of each postcard in the sand after I addressed it. Otherwise they would have blown away…

* * * *

"Why don't you try getting in the water? It's probably perfect for swimming."

You say…

* * * *

But I'm in street clothes. I don't even own a swimsuit—why bother, when I'm blind without my glasses and never get the chance to swim? But Jeff walked straight out into the surf wearing street clothes and nobody even batted an eye. I could at least walk through the waves a bit. It would cool me off.

I get up, and brush some of the extra sand off of my clothes. Jess is lying facedown on her towel, and Jeff is trying to read. Neither of them say anything to me as I get up and walk toward the ocean.

The first wave laps around my toes. I keep walking. The next one hits my ankles, swirls, and subsides. The water is just barely warm—a perfect foil against the heat of the near-cloudless day. I walk further into the ocean, and the waves lap my knees. As they subside, I feel the sand flowing out from under my feet, throwing me off-balance. For the next wave, I lean in the opposite direction, and the sand flow helps me equalize my balance.

The water is clear around my legs. I watch. I'm fascinated. No shells, no tint to the water. Just clear, colorless water and a wash of white foam.

It feels wonderful. Better than I remember. I haven't seen the ocean since the summer before I turned ten, when we went to northern California. There, at low tide, the water was cold and stank of dead fish. It made me never want to go to the beach again.

But this…this is different. I can stare out to where the sea meets the horizon and see no land, no buildings, just water and sky and the distant, bobbing white of the buoys.

I look down, and I realize that I'm now buried to my ankles in the sand. When the next wave rolls in, I lift my feet clear of the sand and begin splash-walking down the shoreline. The sunbathers have their eyes closed, and the swimmers have their eyes to the sea. It's the middle of the afternoon, and I might as well be alone.

It's perfect. Everyone should have at least one day like this.

* * * *

"Now, as I begin to count backwards, you will turn around and begin to walk back up the beach toward your towel. With each step you will feel lighter, freer, more relaxed. Imagine the weight of the world—all the things you care and worry about—and place those weights and worries in the surf. As I count backwards, you will continue walking, and those things that worry you will flow away with the tide…

"….three. Two. One. Wake up, dear. How was your vacation?"

"Wonderful. When can I go again?"