to see it again

via

there are few things i enjoy more than seeing someone experience afresh and anew something i've long taken for granted.

it happened with the song "passing afternoon," when i made my sister three iron and wine cds just so she could fall in love with them. and in love she has stayed.

it happened again when i gave robert a collection of short stories by gabriel garcia marquez. we'd lie together on his twin bunk bed in the middle of the afternoon, his head propped up against the wall and mine against the window, reading out loud to each other as college kids trampled outside in the hall.

it happened also to robert when he took me up into the little alcove on the hilltop that overlooked the lake. the little nest of bushes and shrub that he used to immerse himself inside as a child. his hiding spot no longer secret.

tonight, we are taking robert's grandparents to the beach. armed with a pair of new culottes for her and bullfrog sunscreen for him, as well as a supply of homemade chocolate pound cake for us all. to see them walk on warm sand toward a cerulean sea for the first time in many, many moons.

because yes, they've seen the ocean. but when there are years between visits, when there are babies and grandbabies and gardens and three meals a day and cancers and needlework and bluebird mornings between the first and last time they've walked on a pier,

it's time to go again. time to dip again. dance again. feast again. and not take one minute of drenching sun for granted. like us beach bunnies and teenagers and lovers of the forever summer tend to so often do.