Nothing is simple anymore. Disbelief, fear, and hope around Covid-19 have become our companions and these emotions are anything but simple. However, I’ve also come to appreciate a new-found simplicity.  

After two months of diligent quarantine, my husband Ray and I drove from our South Shore Long Island home to a public beach in Montauk, the End!, as the natives (or tourist bureaus) call it because it’s the final elbow that juts into the Atlantic. Arriving at the beach, we settled into our red stadium chairs left of the entrance, on a flat sandy spot, to enjoy the cool sunny brisk early May afternoon. 

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The wind lapped at the fine-raked sand, causing it to skid and tumble. It was as if the golden grains had been sifted, no lumps, garbage, or tire marks. No seagulls, no terns, no plovers, no boats, no driftwood, no planes, few people. Two boys joked at the water’s edge, the older one feign-pulling the younger into the foamy gentle spray. Arms akimbo, laughing. 

The turquoise sea pushed and pulled an Etch-a-Sketch of waves beneath the unerring horizon that curved, like a wide-angle lens, around the cove. The sound of waves like wind slapping a backyard laundry line of white sheets. Such certainty. The sky gave us a Crayola blue that grew deeper away from the horizon towards the sun.

At home, my eyes have adjusted to the short stare—the bathroom mirror, the iPhone, the dinner plate, the tops of my chapped, salmon-colored hands, a Zoom face. So when I took in the expanse, the pleasure held my eyes, like jewels, behind my sunglasses.  Something so stunning still existed.

I imagine there’s an open palate to broad brush a new vision. 

Life is made up of tiny moments. Begging to be appreciated.