I have always lived near a beach. I was born in Southern California, and one of my earliest memories is of digging my fingers into warm, wet sand. Even before I could walk, my mother would sit me at the water''s edge and I''d laugh with delight as the foamy surf swirled in around my chubby legs.
             In our grammar school days, my sisters and I would spend our summers at the beach, taking turns burying each other in the sand up to our chins. We collected only one kind of shell--a tiny, pointed one that looked like a miniature unicorn horn. But mostly we played in the water, jumping high into the cresting waves and shrieking happily, or sitting in the shallows and letting the waves knock us down like bowling pins, squealing at the raspy rush of sand in our swimsuits and salt water up our nose.
             Then I was in high school, and the beach was where the gorgeous, sun-bleached surfers rode the waves and roamed the shore from daybreak to dusk. Now I never entered the water (I looked horrible with wet hair!); I spent the day lying on an oversized beach towel, layered with suntan oil and baking in the sun, turning over every fifteen minutes and watching the guys out of the corners of my eyes. I met a few nice ones, chased away a lot of creeps, dreamed of but never found my Prince of the Sun.
             After graduation, I went to work, and now I went to the beach mostly after dark. I loved to walk along the surf line under a bright cast of pale moonlight, listening for the secrets of my future in the steady lapping of the waves and the distant horns of ships leaving the harbor. My fondest memories of that time in my life are of solitary evenings spent barefoot on the beach, feeling the seashells sharp against my tender insteps. The sounds of gentle breezes rustling the tall palms and of the surf swirling across the white sand melded into a song of the beach, a song to sooth my heart.
             Though I have always loved the beach, it has no...