Melinoe on a half-shell

Oh, ouch. The tensions of the last week have found their way into my middle and lower back, into my jaw. Sometimes my hands shake. Tomorrow, we confront the teaching staff at younger daughter's school. We only plan to deliver the hereunto undeliverable homework, along with a reminder of our phone number and respective emails, but it may be an indication that things have already gone too far.

I comfort myself with music, with books, with movies, with memories. On one of our last nights in Victoria last August, my friend-of-the-right-hand offered to take us to Mount Tolmie to watch the sunset.

"Oh, could we go to a beach?" I asked. Six weeks had passed, and I had failed to stroll by the sea.

So she drove us down to Willows Beach. The sun had already slipped behind the park, and the mountains were mauve and misty. The water rippled in lines of silver and lilac. Younger daughter took off her shoes and waded into the gentle pearly ripples, while we filled our shoes with fine grey sand. A seal poked up her head, then slipped away unseen.

And I didn't have a camera with me. But I do have this picture of an abalone shell. That's something what it was like.