Ensemble

All of the family has arrived. My Nana, Aunt Debra and her children. Mark, David, Tim, Chris, Susan, and Laura with spouses and a troop of yelling little blond grandchildren. There are four generations present here.

In the morning the house squeals with the shouts and laughs of children playing. My cousins are all much older, some with children almost my age. Others coincidentally had children about 10 years ago, all of these turned out to be little girls. Alex and Haley the twins, their younger sister Samantha, Sarah, and Rain. A wild posse of little blond munchkin tomboys.

Come afternoon I fled for the peace of the windy beaches to wander the seashores and explore around the Cape. I rode my bike to Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and the last protected pocket of windblown bonsai oak forests on the banks. In the sedge marshes are cattails and dwarf palmetto right up against rolling sand dunes, shape shifting and alive. The minaret of the famous Cape lighthouse peers down on a windy beach wrapping around the point in a sandy embrace.

Sea shells litter the shoreline, washed up starfish wiggle and gasp thrown up from the deep. Their little feelers tickle and amaze. I heave them back far out in the surf. Good luck! The wind is ferocious today, etching sidewinder patterns like a rough shave over the sand. Sculpting the land. And seabirds, sand pipers, gulls, dowitchers, and terns all work the surf line. Huddled patient and resolute, bracing against the angry Atlantic winds.