Ocean and April

The heat is back, with little to no transition.  We had a lovely late winter this year, cool well into early April, but now the potent summer approaches, intense as a tiger.

I can hear the festive music from the ice cream truck outside the open window.  I'm looking forward to trips to the zoo, days on the beach, taking The Squirt to the swimming pool.

He is already a water baby.  All my parents' children are as well, and I think it is because of our close ancestral proximity to the sea.  I remember unbearably hot days on blinding white sand across from gem-blue water.  We hail from the Panhandle; call ourselves Riverfolk.  For generations before the Civil War, some of our kind have lived in the swampland off the Florida Panhandle.

The ocean is a familiar mystery.  It's deep and ponderous and sometimes violent, but always familiar.  I like to sleep to the sound of ocean waves and befuddled relatives when I camped out on the balcony at the condo rentals during our family reunions.

Mountains are different.  The first time I saw the Swiss Alps it was what some would call a religious experience.