“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” — Henry James

They are beautiful words to me, too. Since early July we’ve had so many memorable ones. The blue ones,

the grey ones at Trail Bay while some people swam in the ocean and others sat on logs looking towards Vancouver Island under the clouds.

There were purple afternoons when children found sea stars tucked under the rocks and seaweed at low tide,

and there was yesterday, not photographed, when I floated in Middle Bay at Francis Point, floated, drifted, while the little boys made a habitat for hermit crabs and tiny snails and an oyster cemented to a stone in an orange bucket shaded with bladder wrack, calling goodbye as they emptied everything into the tide as we left.