067: the secret beach

We found it, just like that. An overgrown, barred-off trail wound between tipping fence-slats and low dunes, past a stack of faded yellow-and-orange canoes, into a hushed cove. High houses on all sides, castles of the town’s wealthy and long-settled; us, smaller than sand-grains. We walked down the damp sand to the water, snaking among seaweeds and strewn mussels, crossed to a lip in the careening wall of rock that rounded the land’s edge. A nook in the rock, a wide chair, sun-warmed—we nestled there, dazed in the sun, dreaming of summer.