beach.

My grandfather oftentimes took me and my cousin to the beach when we were younger. My cousin was the type to immediately plow towards the water as soon as we found a place to set down our things, while I usually stayed behind for a bit until I felt I was comfortable enough to join him. I was less scared of the water than I was of the other people around us, usually older couples, parents with their kids.

I'd sit in the sand with my overlong shirt and my bathing suit and I would watch my cousin as he seemed so unbothered by everything around him, the chill of the water as the tide kept pulling in and out. At the time the scope of what I felt about how he composed himself came down to how much more outgoing he was than me, how much “cooler” he was just by virtue of being so brash. Nowadays, looking back, I still think it's a shade of something like that for me to see two people as separate.

I went to the beach this past summer with a person I had known for a good while. I'm sure I mentioned them to you before. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't see them the way they wanted me to, and I'm sure they realized it whenever we spent time together. I was swimming alone and going out farther from where there were some rocks so that the lifeguard wouldn't scold me, and I realized once I started treading, how little I was thinking of what they were doing, back on land and silently observing me from beneath the umbrella because they didn't feel like going into the water just then.

I talked a lot with you about my cousin. For that reason I sometimes hesitate to share with you just how much things were peaceable back then. I eventually joined him in the water. I remember taking a lot of pictures with one of those disposable cameras once we dried ourselves off, the ones with those noisy scroll wheels that we had to flick with our thumbs after each shot.

All the while, I also remember how my grandfather would oftentimes go for walks along the water. He kept his gaze forward and upright and I always thought it looked like he was waiting for something to happen just before him.