Unbeach That Belly

I should have known that strange and wonderful things were bound to happen on the day that I woke to see the sunrise over Isle of Palms. When I think back, I can't count the number of times I've seen a sunset. But sunrise is different. I'm not a morning person so watching a sunrise is a rare thing for me. This is how the day unfolded...

Taylor woke up (for the third or fourth time) early last Wednesday morning, August 20, 2008. After soothing her back to sleep (not knowing the time), I noticed a sliver of daylight dawning between the drawn curtains. The beginning of sunrise. I slipped out of the room, careful not to wake Taylor or Pete, and took Ali (our doggie) to the beach. A warm wind blew across the wide stretch of sand and a stack of lavender clouds filled the sky (the first band of tropical storm Fay, as it turned out). On the distant horizon, a smear of orange preceded the rise of the sun. I stood near the low tide line, watched the color of the sky shift and change to the constant sound of gusting wind and purring waves. I saw the beach turn from dim gray to brilliant beige in an instant. The day broke open.

And then the sky broke open.

Raindrops scattered across the beach and the wind picked up. I started to run, following fast behind Ali. We made it inside minutes before a downpour. But the magical day had only just begun. As it turned out, this was to be the day that Taylor took her first swim in the ocean. I dipped her feet in the waves and sat with her where the ocean smoothed over the wet sand. She splashed her feet in the salt water while I made sand drip booties on her chubby legs. Later that day, Taylor unbeached her belly and made more forward progress in her attempt to crawl. I call her current stage 'lurching'. And much like Taylor's lurching, my novel had been lurching along. It was on this day that my novel unbeached its belly and found forward momentum by first going backwards (much the same way that Taylor is learning to crawl). I realized - in a haze of creative distraction that lasted for the remainder of the day - that I need to tell the whole story. My novel needs a past. I went about jotting down thoughts on blue sticky notes throughout the evening.

We finished the day with dinner at Poe's (our first time eating there), which was an appropriate literary end to an inspiring day.