The Wind and the Waves

.. a different day, but similar wind and waves ...

August 2, 2018

At 5:30 pm the wind came up again.

And this time I could see the waves from my house beating the shore.

All of the children wanted to take a swim so we walked down across the tracks to the Ramp Camp. We watched for snakes, or a lizard or anything that would skitter across our path. I sat at the beach while Michael ran into the waves with his snorkel and mask. Alice ran down the beach for her lifejacket and soon joined him. I could hear them laughing with every wave that knocked them over. Soon they were bobbing with the water, but still the gasps of delight were coming.

When Michael got cold he came out, but our towels were all down the beach. He was so frozen he covered himself with the pads that belong on a beach chaise. “Thank you, grandmother,” he said when I told him I would walk down to the Shady Beach to get him a towel. But of course, I couldn’t walk down with Alice still in the water. I tried to coax her to swim along with me, but the cold hit her at that moment and she was out, running down the beach, now crying for a towel, herself.

We sat at the Shady Beach reading a French version of the book, Captain Underpants. They wanted to know if I could read French. Yes. I did not tell them that just because I can read it, doesn't mean I can understand it. They wanted instant translation. That wasn’t necessary since they know the story and before I can finish any sentence, they jump in with what the correct English words should be.

The white dock was bobbing in the water, and now warm, they decided to ride the waves while standing on the dock. What made this successful is that the water had beat the dock into shore and so they could scramble on and have the joy of bobbing while close to shore. Michael fell off, banged his shins on the rocks below. Now I could explain to him what the term, barking your shins means.  He cried for quite a while.

... this time, Bonnie finding joy in the waves ...

When we left to walk up to the cabin, a train was going by. Today I have been emphasizing “staying a respectful way back from the train”, a concept they are not that happy with, but I am staying with the concept.

Alice can’t help running down a steep path when she sees one. This time she noticed the road down to the Ramp Camp, took a good run at it, slid on the loose gravel and experienced a good slide on her bottom, which was only covered by the thin fabric of her swimming suit.

 She had a right to howl over that. So she was my second casualty while I was watching the kids at the beach.

Betty just played up and down the shoreline. When it was time to go home, she walked barefoot, skipping from one fine, sandy spot on the road to another, while I carried her shoes up the hill.

We went straight to the ice-cream island when we got home, although Alice went straight to have a warm soak in the silver claw-footed tub in my bathroom, howling again for her mother at both the hurt and the indignity of the slide on the road.

 “I just can’t help myself from running,” she wept to her mother.

Arta