… is all that Les UDs had hoped. The short drive from ‘thesda featured spectacular skies over the Chesapeake Bay as we crossed the long bridge.
Gist of conversation during the drive:
UD: Isn’t the idea – merely as first principle – that we’re so grubby God has to come down and be tortured to death to redeem us from our grubbiness a pretty convoluted – not to mention pretty rank – idea?
Mr UD: Not when you take the correct approach to it.
So far the weather’s been perfect: Big sun, mild air. Cloudless skies over the ocean. The horizon line has a piercing clarity; container ships seem to skate on a knife-edge. Shoulder season means it’s late enough to be warm (even hot), but too early for the low-flying planes advertising cheap beer. The almond cookie smoothness of the beach is only slightly undone by beach-goers, among whom we have already noticed some doppelgängers. One couple in particular… We walked by them as they unloaded their car into our building on arrival. They drove a Prius, looked about our age, had OBAMA stickers on their car (we don’t do stickers, but we do Obama) … Later, we saw them on the beach looking very Soltanesque — each reading what looked like a not very beachy book…
On her morning walk UD was reminded of one of many beach scenarios she enjoys: Children are incredibly intense about their sand castles. They have to be, because they’re building with an eye toward the structure being gradually flooded as they finish, so their timing has to be pretty exact. Thus no shrieking and running to and fro, but trancelike mindfulness upon the passage of all things…
Well, and UD likes very much the way beaches – especially beaches in the June sun – subdue us, channel us, create “the miniature gaiety of seasides.”