walkingshadow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
walkingshadow) wrote2002-08-15 02:50 am
walkingshadow) wrote2002-08-15 02:50 am
Keats
My parents and I met my brother for mediocre barbecue tonight: overdone ribs and rice nowhere near sticky and the water tasted... funny. But the french fries were crisp and rectangular and the company lovely and the meal itself warmly companionable, all of us together. Afterwards we stood outside in perfect dusk and I watched the clouds build and scuttle and it was any one of a thousand nights with friends, "what do you want to do? Where can we go? Any ideas? Anyone? No?"
The beach was only ten minutes away, and I love that, I love that I live four miles from the ocean, and we reached a consensus on a walk on the boardwalk. Upon arrival, though, the wind was fierce and the clouds towering and the lightening long and sharp across the sky, so we settled on a bench near the car and watched the waves break and break. The breeze is always cool off the ocean, and it was very strong indeed tonight with a storm lurking, and the smell of salt was warm and heavy in the air, in my nose, on my tongue. The palm tree in front of us was postcard-perfect, tall, curved trunk, full fronds artfully askew and waving languidly. Wish you were here.
Conversation between the four of us, driving back to school and moving in, and I tried to babble about the Doppler effect but nobody was biting, and my brother wants to have his own Apple store, to play with all the Apple toys and troubleshoot and arrange classes and help people with their questions. My brother got the people genes. Heat lightning flared often and everywhere, thick and forked and spearing suddenly, sharp flashes of anxiety warring with the lull of the breakers washing over the sand again and again and again. At the first growl of thunder we decided to head back, and though we'd driven through blinding rain on the short trip to the beach, the storm never broke over our stretch of it, and the night as we drove home was humid and close and perfectly still.
The beach was only ten minutes away, and I love that, I love that I live four miles from the ocean, and we reached a consensus on a walk on the boardwalk. Upon arrival, though, the wind was fierce and the clouds towering and the lightening long and sharp across the sky, so we settled on a bench near the car and watched the waves break and break. The breeze is always cool off the ocean, and it was very strong indeed tonight with a storm lurking, and the smell of salt was warm and heavy in the air, in my nose, on my tongue. The palm tree in front of us was postcard-perfect, tall, curved trunk, full fronds artfully askew and waving languidly. Wish you were here.
Conversation between the four of us, driving back to school and moving in, and I tried to babble about the Doppler effect but nobody was biting, and my brother wants to have his own Apple store, to play with all the Apple toys and troubleshoot and arrange classes and help people with their questions. My brother got the people genes. Heat lightning flared often and everywhere, thick and forked and spearing suddenly, sharp flashes of anxiety warring with the lull of the breakers washing over the sand again and again and again. At the first growl of thunder we decided to head back, and though we'd driven through blinding rain on the short trip to the beach, the storm never broke over our stretch of it, and the night as we drove home was humid and close and perfectly still.