Three...

I'm not even going to say why I'm counting down. You already know, and I am certain that you're consumed with jealousy, that you wish you were going along. It would be cruel of me to flaunt it. So I won't.

It's another sunny day and the temp's supposed to get up to 50, way above normal. I am really enjoying it, yes I am. Dusty and I decided that this is the last week we're walking in the mall. Next Tuesday we're going back to the boat launch and walking on the Fox River Trail, unless it's pouring rain or something, that is. It's time to get back out into nature and work on our cardio fitness. Or as Grandma Angermeier would say, "go out and get the stink blowed off." She had a way with words, didn't she?

March 22--Aitutaki Lagoon, Cook Islands. Celia wants to live in that thin place where the sea touches the sand, wants to feel the constant rhythm of the waves lapping on shore. She sits there whenever she gets the chance feeling the thin border of the two worlds pulse and shift. She knows that it's an impossible wish but one she has clung to for years. When she swims in the lagoon she revels in the silky soft caress of the salt water and she feels the nudge toward the beach as an encouragement to return to her intended, no, her destined place. She floats in on the gentle waves feeling the surge lift her into the shallows and she feels the exact moment when she leaves the weightlessness of the ocean for the gravity of the land, and right there at that moment of shift, that's where she wants to stay. A creature of both worlds, she wears clothes the blues of the ocean when she is on land and makes certain that her swim suits are green and brown so that she carries both worlds with her at all times.

I want to be under the warm sea today, looking down at the world down there and feeling the sticky salt and hot sun on my skin. Oh, I do.
--Barbara