Illumination
Chesapeake Bay was warm but not welcoming in the dusk light. Too many unknowns in its beauty. No one out besides two boys with a flashlight and a helicopter in the distance. The hot breeze made little white cowlicks in the tide on its way to my delighted hair and the water bit gently at my ankles. Sand crabs ran sideways from the shadowy footprints they had been hiding in, unsure whether they were safe from our approaching feet that shuffled through the brown sugar sand. They made us nervous too and we walked awkwardly with our gait determined by their skittish movements. The last bit of color was pastel and our conversation was disappearing with it so as we made our way back up the boardwalk, we let the cicadas take over. Step by step we watched the trees swallow any last piece of the day and it went without saying that all of these unknowns would inevitably illuminate the things we do know. I fell in love with everything all at once when my eyes began to scour desperately for light in the muggy and foreign woods.