Places I Would Rather Be

Staying on a rise of land above a sandy beach, I’d wake at first light, throw on jeans and an oversized fisherman’s sweater and sneakers, and walk down to the water, sit on a big piece of worn driftwood, listen to the lapping, watch the ins and outs the approaches and retreats of the early-morning waves, the tide out, wherever tides go.  I’d run a mile on the hard-packed wet sand, sweeping a cloud of shorebirds up ahead of me, until breathless, and then walk back, calming, catching my breath again, watching the little waves, the lazy, absorbed play of them.  I’d pick up water-polished agates from the sand, and tiny fluted shells, and one perfect sand-dollar.

Then I would sit in an Adirondack chair outside my borrowed beach house and drink some of my Harney & Sons Paris tea, with bergamot and vanilla, out of a chipped blue cup set on the wide chair arm; listen to the Emperor Concerto on my iPod; look out at the morning sea; daydream.

Then scrambled eggs with chives and fresh ricotta and a grinding of pepper; a nice ripe pear; and a slice of seedy baguette, toasted, with Irish butter.

And then I’d write all day, in a simple blue room all of old timeworn wood on a small schoolhouse desk in front of a big window with the sea in it.

image:  North Sea, Tomasz Sienicki