Which Is It?

Witness to devastation or search for reassurance - which is it that pulls us to the sandy barrier between ocean and population after a battering storm?

For myself I must confess it's a little of both.

I'm always awed at the way nature can change miles of landscape with a single swipe of turbulent weather. There is an inability to comprehend how water can move hundreds of tons of sand in increments of sixty minutes. And just how does wind lift a piece of driftwood from the beach and drive it through the siding of a house a quarter mile away?

As intriguing as it is to see these things I want to see someplace else - not at the beach I visit. Yes I know every beach is somebody's beach but I want mine to be special. I want to know that when summer arrives the waters of high tide will stay where they belong - at the edge of the sand, not over it. I want to know that despite nature's temperament I still have my place of solace and rejuvenation.

Now if I could just get mother nature to see things my way.....

It Was A Day....

It was a day made for kite flying and fishing...and folks along the shore seized the opportunity. Children, and those still children at heart, guided multi-colored kites through weaving dances and breathtaking dives. Anglers who cast their lines into the ocean were rewarded with bluefish, flounder, and trout. Not a single fisherman sat idle for the fish seemed anxious to be pulled to shore.

In the midst of all the flying and reeling, children danced barefoot at the water's edge in a game of catch me if you can. It was the water that the children dared... scampering first one way then another as the ocean sought their toes.

It was a day of exhilaration, a day of happiness, a day to thrill at the beauty to be found beneath a cloudless blue sky.