Improvising

As Z grows, there will probably come a time when spending two hours driving from Houston to Galveston and back for an hour at the beach won't make a lot of sense.

When simple, physical acts like digging holes in the sand and watching the waves aren't enough to keep her interest.

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the grown woman who will soon be standing where she stands now. They are just glimpses, so subliminal it's hard to place them, like now, her hair hanging in a loose, messy cord, like an adult might wear it, if she turned out to be a certain kind of person, having a quiet dinner in a bookstore cafe...

But for now, we'll tie her hair up with a twistie-tie and dig in warm sand with plastic utensils and a new flyswatter, fill up a used coffee cup with sand and rule our tiny piece of beach like kings and queens.

We do our best to make sure that woman will remember that girl - that she has that same sense of possibility, of spontaneity...