We travelled to the coast on a whim. After our Texas trip proved somewhat less balmy than we'd hoped, we followed the coast weather closely, looking for an opportunity. This weekend promised 60 degrees & sunny, so we jumped on it & booked a cheap, dated motel just off the Promenade in Seaside. of course, we hit the beach first thing upon driving out from Portland.
The very moment X felt the soft, white sand between his toes he took off, frantically crawling back & forth across the wide, glistening expanse, absorbing it all in a manner almost desperate, as if at any moment the magic might be snatched from him. The poor little man is still recovering from his nasty cold, so his sandy, sunblock-smeared face occasionally streamed with snot & he panted as he tried to breathe through his mouth instead of his sore, stuffy nose. He scraped his hands in the sand, digging & scooping, lifting one dripping, disappearing handful after another into the air. He didn't say much, but I heard him laugh to himself a few times. It was a sort of explosive, erupting laugh- as if he were so full to the brim with laughter that a little bit bubbled up & burst out from time to time. Clearly he was smitten.
And so was I -the weather was amazing, not a cloud in the sky. I stripped to a tank top, tossed aside my shoes & threw myself wholly into the fantasy that summer had come early to the Northwest.
And now my face tingles from the sun in all the familiar places. The bedsheets are slightly gritty. My baby spreads his arms & legs & sleeps ever so deeply. He is probably dreaming of today's miracles. How surprised & happy he will be tomorrow to find it was no dream, that the beach is still there, full of sand for him to throw or eat or scurry across on his way to the big water.
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