Low Tide on Folly Beach

Today, when I think about what is inspiring, I think about yesterday. Folly Beach was at low tide, the flat waves twinkling in the morning sun and the wide beach just waking up to families setting up tents for the day.

I go to the family side, not the surfing side, and there was plenty of sand stretching between us and the waves, patterns of shells strewn on the sand like brushstrokes. I lazily walked along the water line for a stretch, looking but not finding shark's teeth to give to my nephew. Instead, I found the sound of the shells being moved against each other by the waves, found the foamy edge of the wave lapping about my very-slightly tanned ankles, and watched as sea kayakers embarked on a morning journey, all from one push of a paddle against sand.

There was a misty, humid haze looking toward Kiawah, and on the other side, the pier, with its sounds of fishermen and the gift shop distant. We were in a changing playground, a shrinking and expanding one, full of sand and sea from the bottom to the very top of our thoughts so we could think of nothing else ...