A Perfect Day Elise
PJ Harvey has a song called "A Perfect Day Elise" -- I never got into the song (though I like much of her stuff). But I love the title.
I've been absent from blogging because work has been busy, home life has been crazy, and, well, that's reason enough.
But in the middle of all the chaos, we took a day last weekend and went to the beach. Not some fancy, elitist beach. No, it was Ocean Beach, our local beach with the odd, perhaps idiotic name.
Prequel (the older one -- I know the metaphor is flawed when even I forget which means which) had the most fun. He played in the sand for a while with his trucks and shovels. I convinced him to go to the water with a bucket. He was cautious about the waves, but eventually I got him to go in.
The thing is, for 6'3" me, the waves coming in and hitting my ankles, maybe my shins, are enough to knock over the 3' boy. So I was holding him by his arms when the larger waves came in and especially when they dragged out.
Then I spotted a sand dollar. A perfect sand dollar. I let go for a moment and went for it. Prequel, naturally, charged towards the incoming waves, got knocked over, and went completely underwater.
I freaked out a bit, but he was laughing about it after recovering from the shock.
But now I'll always remember him looking up at me from underwater with absolute terror, even though it passed in a moment.
Fortunately, his wise mother had a change of clothes, so while I tried to dry out, he flew a kite.
Then we went home.
posted by Torgo @ 2:05 PM
2 Comments:
when i was four, pretty small, my dad took me out in an inner tube into a lake. he was a little taller than you (at the time, he's since shrunk) and went into the water up to his chest, which made the water considerably deep (at least, for me). i slipped through the inner tube and into the water. my dad grabbed me within seconds and pulled me back up; i'm sure he was reacting much like you did.
anyway, years later, that experience helped me write one of the only poems that ira sadoff said was perfect just the way it was written.
When Hannah was 5 and we were visiting San Francisco (the same beach, maybe), the same thing happened. Our dad (also 6'3") had to run into the waves and grab her.
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