Seasoned September
Stepping off the worn and weathered boards, traversing the finely groomed sugary white sand, dropping my petals and unfolding my tent at the mean high tide wrack line, I paused to revere an armada of peering pelicans floating puposefully, about eighty-five meters, offshore in a calming sea. Days before Leslie had quickened her pace from eighteen to forty-five knots per hour and raced past our Mid Atlantic shores, zeroing in on Newfoundland, leaving us with heavy surf and roiling rip currents; now the ocean had receeded and the undertow subsided. The fleet of pelicans eyed me carefully as I dove and body surfed salty swells without being swept swiftly to the south as I had been the previous days. The sun shone brightly with nary a cloud in a cerulean sky. Wet, pink sand, packed firmly, made for easy walking since the tide was low. The water wavered like ten trillion sparkling diamonds. Gulls gulled and fifty-five kites flew at fifth street. Boats powered north, sightseeing, then returned south to the inlet. Bicycles of every color of the rainbow, rumbled north and south and south and north, peddling over the grayed and splintered boardwalk. Readers read and sunburned faces smiled with pleasure from the light north east breeze that cooly fanned their warm faces. September… a fine time to be present.
