Back on the Beach

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It's nothing special. Just a little beachside cafe. Sandwiches and salads. A good place for breakfast, too - omelettes and coffee to linger over after your early morning jog or walk or bike ride. Plastic chairs and picnic tables. Beach umbrellas.

Take your shoes off and wiggle your toes in the warm sand. You can rinse your feet off at the shower, further down by the bike path.

For the summer, this is my new "regular," a short walk from my office. A place to get away from work for a quiet lunch.

The soundscape is interesting here - at once subdued and quiet - you can hear your neighbors talk with perfect clarity, but you can ignore them if you want to. A helicopter goes by, low. The wind sighs.

I sat here today having a sandwich. At the table across the small board walkway, a couple sat drinking orange juice. He talked into his cell phone the whole time - in a French accent, discussing a "fifty million dollar movie" he wanted to make, asking the caller to be patient and wait until the project went "on line" and was able to "monetize."

Meanwhile, his companion talked on her phone, too, assuring someone that Phillippe was available and "committed to the project." She hung up and urgently asked the Frenchmen whether he'd hired the accountant she'd referred to him yet.

A man walked down the boardwalk escorting an elderly lady with a walker. A tattooed bicyclist rode by slowly, on a fat-tired turquoise bike. You could hear the squeals of toddlers in the play-structure around the corner.

I felt secret. Unknown. Hiding. Content. What if I could spend the entire day here? I dipped my french fries into a pool of ketchup and sipped my lemonade.

Time to go back to the office. Shake the sand from my shoes and head back inside.