The chairs are sliding across the deck today, the tops of the live oak and holly fighting with each other just at railing-height and white caps not constant, but enough, all the way to the horizon. Isolated thunderstorms my weather app says with gusts up to 13 mph and 82℉. Warm, not hot at 82℉, not hot till 90℉ or above, not hot till sweltering really. We are used to heat. When we lived in London many years ago, days the 80s brought headlines of "Heat Wave." In North Carolina, days in the 80s are lovely, appreciated, time to eat outdoors, open the windows or at home, wade in the Eno River that weaves itself through Durham. 
Windy Day at the Beach
Maybe because I grew up in St. Louis in a big old house with just two window units, no AC in my bedroom, and walked our small neighborhood to the public pool in the steamiest of weather, maybe that's why hot days seem natural to me: slick skin, warm bones, yesterday sweat in my eyes as I worked in the yard here with the sound of the waves just beyond.
In summer the beaches in North Carolina can get so hot, the sand burns--bare feet, dog paws. We have to walk near the water's edge on wet sand, tide going out or coming in ankle deep sloshing, maybe looking for olives as I walk, or augers or lady slippers, finding pools of shells--not the big ones, not conchs or horseshoe crabs. A conch will appear all alone on a swath of wet sand. But the little guys, they pool like water. You can sit in a pool of shells for a long time, just moving them this way and that with your fingers and spying the tiniest of dove shells or mudsnails for your collection.
Not on a day like today with isolated thunderstorms when the lightening over the ocean can be scary-beautiful and comes so fast there's no time at all. But other days. I have a tall glass jar of augurs I took from my mother's back porch after she moved to a nursing home for her last weeks. I picture her squatting in a pool of shells with a good eye for these tiny carnivores, thinner than a fingernail and swirled (like an auger of course!), with a small opening at one end for their foot to come out. What a miracle, I'm thinking writing this.
What a miracle that at my age I am at the beach (again), tending to the needs of this also now-old-house that we built in 1995 to be just 2 miles down the beach from my retired parents in their rented condo. This topsy-turvy beach house on stilts with the kitchen and living area on the third floor and no elevator, that is now quite a trek for me with armloads of groceries or a cooler. This basically perfect place and perfect time of my life--that is how a week at the beach can make you feel. Thankful, yes? Restored. Happy.
And of course it doesn't have to be the beach. We all have a place. Yours may be a high-rise condo somewhere. Or like friends whom it is hard not to envy--an apartment in Paris. Or like neighbors in Durham, a well-cared-for garden for tea. Or neighbors on the other side, a cabin and vegetable garden. My St. Louis cousin and her husband have down-sized to an apartment near their son that is giving them great peace-of-mind and is a new urban adventure. The Simple Things, that UK magazine I treasure every month, has a feature on favorite places. Some months a reading nook, some a peaceful bathroom filled with plants, some a window with a view or a charming backyard gazebo. Readers contribute and tell why this spot relaxes or grounds them, or transposes a bad day to a good.
I've wandered far from the chairs sliding across the deck and the wind has let up some now. Thank you for staying with me. Are you thinking now about your favorite place, or where you would like to create one? Tell me in a comment if you wish. These are lovely things to share.
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