Masian Beach

Any beach, anywhere in the world, reminds me of my grandparents' house up a hill along the coast. Walking down that paved incline with buckets and shovels in tow, crossing Highway 1, and sticking my feet into the cool sand. Wiggling my piggies to get it all between each one nice and good. Careful not to step on the ice plants, the sand would warm farther along until it got cool and wet and work would begin on a canal to direct the water into my moat. I'd wash shells there and the best ones I'd put in an old cigarbox. Once, I buried my father's shoe and we never found it again. Fifteen years later I'd sit alone at the same beach and wonder what to make of my life. Ten years after that, I sit here at Masian Beach, still wondering the same thing. I do love the beach.

So just let me be beside the seaside!
I'll be beside myself with glee
and there's lots of girls beside,
I should like to be beside, beside the seaside,
beside the sea!

-- I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside (1907)