It is a family breakfast day, and so I take the dogs on a very shortened walk down to the Sound in a wind. Wind blowing the bright green grass of the dunes and the surf swishing shallow over the rocks. They trot to the fresh water of roaring brook spilling down to the sea and drink, and then I find a buoy washed up on shore from last night and throw it for Charlie. There’s a little boy on the beach with a grown up. Charlie runs up to him and the boy finds a stick to throw for Charlie, but when I show the boy the buoy and how Charlie will swim for it as it bounces on the surface the boy is thrilled and throws it out for him. We cannot stay long, and Charlie won’t give up his toy. He carries the heavy heft of it up the dirt road all the way home. In the midst of this fun and relaxing day of paddle boarding and swimming and sunning and boating with my family, I am also thinking about tomorrow, the Islander’s Write Festival where I’ll be presenting a workshop and reading some poems. Wondering who will come and what pictures they’ll bring to write from their personal lives and what they will write and will they find the secret reveal of their picture and by putting it in words? So, tomorrow will be a writing day, not a swimming day, and I’ll feel ready and eager to see what happens.