August:
Early
8 August 2011
The surf was so angry yesterday that a lifeguard, who appeared out of nowhere (there are lifeguards?), urged us not to go in deeper than our knees. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her keep us under surveillance as we drifted further than we ought to, and then retracted to higher ground. No one was tempted to disobey the order. There was nothing inviting about the thundering breakers, and what undertow we could feel against our legs made it very clear that trying to get out of the water, once we were really in it, would be taxing at best, and dangerous at best, too.
At a quarter to seven, those of us who were staying on kissed those who were leaving goodbye; offsetting the melacholy of the occasion, we were two trios (not counting Will) — crowds, as the saying has it, when crowds were needed. When our simple dinner was just about through, the thunder passed from the sea to the sky, and the heavens let loose a deluge that made an enormous racket on the screened porch’s corrugated roof.