Sometimes You Let the Day Take You Where It Will

gulls

in the sand

I had a bout of insomnia last night but finally dozed off listening to a podcast (content forgotten, but a man with a soothing voice) and slept until 9 am.  I'll admit it: the moment I wake up, I reach over and grab my iPad in one mindless, seamless motion–similar to the way a boy I briefly dated back in the 1970s used to sit up, grab his bedside pack of Lucky Strikes, and light his first cigarette. It's pretty pathetic, but I sort of check the news and see if anyone has contacted me in the middle of the night other than Bookings.com offering me last-minute deals to Oslo.  This time there was a text from our young neighbors: "We made pancakes. Come on over!"

So we did. Preceded by coffee, of course.

I haven't had pancakes in a long time. They are very good soaked in syrup, and very conducive to indolence. We decided to bail on our chores and have a beach day. I rode my bike there to get some exercise, Monte and Ryan went surfing, and Carey and I played in the sand with little Virginia. (When was the last time you dug a hole in the sand at the seashore? Been a long time for me. Too long.)

So I enjoyed watching a little girl being a little girl, and I felt sufficiently purposeful smoothing walls around our saltwater pool and patting down cakes of good moist sand to offer to returning surfers. A formation of white gulls soared overhead and my sadness slid away for a while and hid itself in shadow somewhere.It's as a wise friend once told me: sometimes you just have to let the day take you where it will.