A day at the beach

While Hurricane Isaac rips out the electric wires and floods homes in Louisiana and Mississippi, and while I send them all my hopes and love, Bella and I had a glorious day at Cannon Beach with her parents. Son S. is home from a seven-week tour and made this picture of us, seated on a log as the fog rolls in behind us over Ecola State Park.

I have just finished reading, on the recommendation of Blip-friends, Diana Athill's memoir, written when she was 89, Somewhere Towards the End. One of my favorite bits of it is her description of her mother's dying, which was mercifully swift, occurring the day before her 96th birthday. Athill's mother had recently gone for a drive in the country. Asked how it was, the mother answered with her last words, "It was absolutely divine" (98).

May those be my last words, too, whenever the time comes, and whatever I've just been doing. It describes this day at the beach perfectly. Cool wind, warm sun, late summer. Fog rolling in. Re-discovering the beauty of sand, that final particle. Sifting it through our fingers, shaking it out of our shoes, laughing and loving each other.