Throughout this trip, the kids have regularly returned to the beach and every time they do, I am more convinced it’s a place of comfort for them, a place they feel at home.

They race the waves, teasing and flirting with them to see just how close they can get. They chase each other. They dance (drawing disco balls in the sand to indicate the time and space), releasing all the energy kept in their reserve tanks…energy that only the clearest blue sky and salty breeze can bring out of them. They are crafters, making homes in the man-made driftwood huts, “discovering” clay and forming pots, rerouting the little rivers that trickle from the woods into the ocean. The sort pebbles, build castles, find shells. They write their name in the sand and practice numbers up and down the shore. They observe. They find crabshells and jellyfishes, colorful agates, bivalves and univalves. They watch birds. They build eddies. They watch for dolphins, whales, and seals, waiting with bated breath.

We should always find ourselves near a beach, no?