waves away

September 13 Midmorning, I lie on the bed on my side looking out my window at the Mississippi River , hiding from the high temperature. I’ve gotten my cheese Danish and grapefruit wedge from the courtyard buffet, and Brian is still down there, perusing the newspaper along with a few other wayward guests. He’s already talked to the airline about relinquishing our seats on the flight from Memphis , if it goes, three days from now. It was a short phone call. The Delta representative, every light of her phone probably flashing frantically, was relieved, and now we have ticket vouchers for the next trip to Vegas or elsewhere.               Things are quiet. My duffel is zipped up, Café du Monde beans and beignet mix tucked into the side pocket. Brian’s key card clicks in and out of the door and he joins me on the bed. Then there’s a sound in the sky and we’re both standing at the window. Below us in the street pedestrians ...

September 12 Breaking through the dark surface of dreamless sleep, I can almost hear the splash and feel the vital air on my cheek. I sit up in bed immediately. The oaky little room is cool, the sky azure through the window screen. The video camera is coming toward me.             “We didn’t get blown up!” I tell it.               “Nope!” Brian documents merrily, “We’re here.” The part of me lingering back in the watery subconscious really is surprised—to be in one piece, in this room, in this strange refuge of a city. I want to get out on the street to verify it quickly (even though, for the first time, we have two long days to indulge this new place). Unencumbered in my gauziest shorts and shirt, little purse on a string over my shoulder and no map whatsoever, my hand is on the doorknob minutes after my shower.         ...

September 11 The dawn light does its work again, tingling my eyelids, stirring me to roll over and face the world through the open hatch of the van. Brian sits as if in meditation, shirtless and cross-legged in the sand, documenting through the camera a solitary meandering crab. Behind him, the cloudless morning sky is colored like the inside curve of a conch.           The beach is silent but for the whispery sluice of waves.  Green umbrellas stand abandoned with matching chairs. Half-bundles of wood are piled on a picnic bench and sand villages dissolve in the receding tide. Two old men, deeply tanned and wrinkled around their little black swim trunks, wade into the gulf with stick-and-string fishing poles. At either periphery I see signs for Tang-o-Mar and Caribe , private beaches for use by residents and guests only; mid-century condominiums rise diagonally beyond them. The warm ...