Yesterday, for no reason at all, the ocean to my right (frigid and frothy, speckled in drizzle and mist, a tide that knows no seasons, but pushes and pulls regardless of sunny, tourist-swamped beaches or damp, empty ones like ours), I felt tiny pinpricks of seashell fragments between my toes and I laughed the wild laugh of a girl surprised to find herself at the seaside. The rain too bad but perfect too, because it made the shore ours and ours alone: A chilly shore, A foamy shore, A shore of greys and browns and unexpected pinks, off in a cloudless pocket of sky - could be miles out above the water. Shoeless in rolled-up jeans, we let the Atlantic roll over our ankles - a shock of cold, a last breath of winter catching us on the eve of May. Waves quicker than fish hastened our splashy retreat, wet sand caking our soles as we ran, ran to the safety of his breathless smile, two kites earthbound but soaring. My body nothing but movement and laughter and raindrops, like a child’s, as he caught my arm and dragged me back towards the life-giving sea.