The first glimpse of the bay from the car is an excitement that cannot be explained.
Ahead, framed by the pines that line the beach road like a tunnel, the water and the sky are indistinguishable, cocked at an oblique angle to the narrow road like driving down the capital letter V into a sort of shimmering, aquamarine eternity.
The ocean, still a mile ahead, is the end of the world.
But by the time you start looking for parking the illusion has passed. The briquette smoke and screaming children restore the earth's perspective—flatten it again.
A malevolent stretch of arid, sun-baked weeks had left New England sticky and argumentative. The cumulous clouds floated, each day, rather insipidly in a blue sky that never darkened, never jostled the leaves that, this August, have started falling early.
No matter how low I get, I always attend the church picnic. And this hangover—still going strong at 1:00—defined low. In my wide-brimmed straw hat and chic sunglasses, I looked like Norma Desmond with distention. I am a bad person, and several people at this picnic know it pretty well.
I am here to swim.
