This is Manzanita, a small town on the northern Oregon coast and the place I almost always mean when I say the beach, the beach, the beach. This trip, one of extended luxury, with a Friday departure and a late Monday return, was particularly brilliant. Three days of sun and almost no winds. The sunsets were practically heartbreaking. No, really. With the waxing moon lifting up from the horizon at the same time, the skyglow and the silvered dark gray sand, we were all in awe of the little spot of land we get to inhabit here.

Sunday morning I got up with the light and slipped into the hot tub on the second-floor deck of the house. A few birds marked the pale sky, the windbent evergreens shook off their gothic night time postures. The clouds were smudged pink. I felt the same way I did when watching the early morning waves of Tulum, the early morning air and animals; This is the way the world would feel without us.