Bo-Bo Knows Gratitude for The Beach

Last night I walked Bo on—not along—the Winthrop Beach outpost. The tide was low enough to let us pass between the crashing waves and the craggy rocks that are too treacherous to travel through in the light—never mind the dark. The people of Winthrop call any movement along the water a wave, but I grew up near the New Hampshire seacoast. I know a real wave has the power to hold you upside down just long enough that you're still laughing when you sputter back to the surface. In Winthrop, the waves are beautiful and calming, but they're nothing more than ripples from some restless mermaid's bath.

The outpost—that's just my name for it, nothing official—is my favorite part of the beach. To reach the water here requires a climb down two staircases, and, once there, you're annexed from Winthrop Beach proper by several impassable jetties. Not many people bother with this little spit of seaside, so because of that, descending to the shore here, particularly when the packed sand is glistening, unmarred by anyone who walked there before you, is descending into another world. An easy transfer to a calmer country, a quick trip to the dark side of the moon. Here, you remember things you'd thought you'd forgotten, allow your brain to turn away from whatever thoughts had you low down, as if what was bothering you just needed communion with the tide to remember how to ebb and ebb and ebb. And at night, when the only light comes from a dim streetlamp, an even dimmer moon, and whatever of those two is reflected on the baby white caps lolling in toward the shore, it's as if the whole purpose of the crash and hum of Winthrop's wee waves is this reminder: the only thing that will really matter tomorrow is remembering to breathe today.