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Saturday, July 15, 2006
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Beach, Evening The familiar elements, after coming here for decades, are important: The narrow light wood boardwalk, the sound of the breakers, the kites that twist in the wind. But the new elements matter too: the just-built seaside pavilion, the dune grasses, the repainted blue and yellow sheds that hold the rental umbrellas. Last year Mr UD couldn't join us -- he went to Kurdistan -- but I'm looking out at him now from our balcony. He's shivering a bit in his blue folding chair on the beach, having insisted on going in the water. He's reading some absurdly unbeachy book -- a saint's confessions, a chronicle of a failed state. In this lucky country, at this beautiful beach, failure in any case seems to have been put in the shade, leaving, at seven in the evening, a landscape of happy people, urging their children home to bed. |