Today I am happy and alive. I am taking deep breaths and smiling as I relive our mini-vacation at Melbourne Beach Yesterday.

It is Easter Sunday, 3:00 PM; I am standing on the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean. I am barefoot with my jeans rolled up. I am wearing a huge Vietnam rice paddy hat and a red tank top. Cold white suds cover my feet up to my ankles and pull away into the surf. I watch tourists swimming and boogie boarding and yelling and shivering.

Just in front of me, is a pretty girl shaking her head and smoothing her wet jet-black shoulder length hair with her hands. She is wearing a shiny red bikini with red shoestrings attached to her bottom half. Her suit is a solid color. The color of a wet, ripe tomato. I can't take my eyes off this goddess! I smile and remember when I use to look and dress like her.
I take my eyes from the girl in the red bikini and extend my vision to the ocean, shades of dark blue, blue/green and I look further for miles out onto the straight line horizon where the water meets the blue cloudless sky. And at this moment, here it comes:

the highlight of my day, my week, my year...thus far!


I move my eyes upward and see a line of perfectly spaced pelicans, six birds small at first than appearing larger as they descend down into the water. They are so close that I can see the details of their black feathered wings and their pouch under their beak and their brown eyes. For a brief moment the pelicans are sharply in focus as the dark shades of blue/green contrast their white bodies and I am in Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Where is my husband?
Oh how I long to put my arms around him and laugh and point at the birds.

He is way back in the shade watching from a far protected by a gazebo roof. My husband missed this up close water's edge experience. Next time, we will rent an umbrella and I will move our blanket closer to the surf and then ask him to join me, as I take his hand and walk with him into the Ocean. I can't wait!


I am barefoot with my jeans rolled up. I am wearing a huge Vietnam rice paddy hat and a red tank top. Cold white suds cover my feet up to my ankles and pull away into the surf. I watch tourists swimming and boogie boarding and yelling and shivering.



Just in front of me, is a pretty girl shaking her head and smoothing her wet jet-black shoulder length hair with her hands. She is wearing a shiny red bikini with red shoestrings attached to her bottom half. Her suit is a solid color. The color of a wet, ripe tomato. I can't take my eyes off this goddess! I smile and remember when I use to look and dress like her.

I take my eyes from the girl in the red bikini and extend my vision to the ocean, shades of dark blue, blue/green and I look further for miles out onto the straight line horizon where the water meets the blue cloudless sky. And at this moment, here it comes:
the highlight of my day, my week, my year...thus far!


I move my eyes upward and see a line of perfectly spaced pelicans, six birds small at first than appearing larger as they descend down into the water. They are so close that I can see the details of their black feathered wings and their pouch under their beak and their brown eyes. For a brief moment the pelicans are sharply focused as the dark shades of blue/green contrast their white bodies and I am in Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Where is my husband? Oh how I long to put my arms around him and laugh and point at the birds. He is way back in the shade watching from a far. My husband missed this up close water's edge experience. Next time, we will rent an umbrella and I will move our blanket closer to the surf and then ask him to join me, as I take his hand and walk with him into the Ocean. I can't wait!