spare change

Another gray mid-western winter day and change is taking place. Everywhere it seems. The cat lays behind me on this chair. The bug is gone. Dylan is at school. Ray sends me links for mountain biking. Links for spring break. Links. Colorado. California. New Mexico. Arizona. We prefer warm but think of ski vacations and shrug them off. No. That is for uncle Arthur and his friends and people who have money. Beach vacations and biking vacations and hiking, eating, walking vacations are simpler. Still we ponder trying to ski. But no. Somehow, sailing and surfing (be it body or board) just seems more natural. No trees to hit only sharks to bite or waves to pull. The sharks can be problematic. But what is a tree? Or steep rocky terrain? Then I see pictures, my brother, his kids, smiling broadly, sun-splashed, happy-healthy. "It isn't expensive!" he says expansively.

I have never been one to be much of a joiner and would rather sit on a beach with a book, a big hat, (like Grandmother, still sitting in the sun at sixty, at seventy, at eighty, still flying to an island somewhere). Or sail and go snorkeling. Or hike a trail. Or ride a bike....Or eat in a restaurant, a greasy spoon with a funky name and good strong coffee. The boys are like that somewhat because it was years ago that they enjoyed a nature preserve more than Disney World (there were Manatees and alligators, a hippo and a jetty ride through the "swamp").
Through the years they (the boys) have enjoyed hanging out on beaches, still we remember that long-ago beach, in the sun and wind, making wash-away sand castles and playing in the ocean, enjoying it so much that I bought boogie boards at the Piggly-Wiggly down the way and carried boards and sand and towels (in the car on an eighteen hour drive) home, we stayed an extra day. It was silly. The boards sat for years in a corner of the basement, shedding their sand. Forgotten.

Christmas Vacation. USVI. 2007.  Other than an older lady (who gave me great hints and tips on getting around the Island) . We had this particular beach to ourselves (and the occasional Rasta, smoking...).