Gift of Today

Today, up here in the amazing Northeast, was one of those gift days
that you can't expect but you have to take hold of when they appear.
Maybe it's just one of the results of global warming and it is a
harbinger of the end of civilization as we know it, but for today it
was warm and comforting.

We may not get a day this warm until
next April. But it was better than that because the sky had that extra
clarity that only comes with the tilt of the earth that brings autumn
to New England. I wandered down passed the newMcMansion they are
building that is reaching higher than it's neighbors to catch a view of
the water. It is a house that does not belong, should not be built, and
holds no real value except to curse whoever lives there with a life of
tacky egoism.

But once passed that blemish I was on the path of
the scrub-pines that led to the dunes. Up over the little rise and the
water burst visible. The dune-grass is a bright green and yellow, the
sky was perfect and the sea was almost flat. The waves came in
mesmerizing and methodically every nine seconds. They broke from each
end sending an arrow of shooting white curl to a roiling mid-point. The
white gulls sat on the hard packed brown sand where the water hadreceded
and waited for tide to bring in their next meal. One two-masted sloop
boobed halfway to the horizon with two bleached white sails. The sound
of the breaking waves rippled over the smooth stones.

All I could do was watch and nod and smile. It was clear that the earth will
survive all of us and everything we do to it. There will be other
creatures that will thrive on the pollution we leave behind.

Since I am not in Mumbai,Lagos, Darfur or Baghdad I could lull myself into allowing the feeling that allis right with the world. My wife, at this moment is happy, my children are healthy, beautiful and now self-sufficient.

I can survey the
length of the beach and can see no terrorists. That round woman with
the big black dog is kind of frightening, but I am not scared. For a
moment in time, at this spot, the world is good