This is it.  This is the place. I never pass this way but what I say to myself, “There, that is the corner where you wrote Terry’s name in the mud, hoping it would last forever, but knowing the river would wash your secret away.”

Then again, this may not be the correct location.  Highway 65 does look like the place, but perhaps it triggers a memory of Glenwood Canyon.  Mom, Dad, Me, my Brother -we were on the way somewhere.  To Grand Mesa?  To Denver?  Who knows?  I was so burdened with my desire for that tanned, blond, talented boy, that I took a stick in hand and told my love to the river putty. I wonder, is it rare to feel as strong a connection as I felt at 10?

Puppy Love, they call it.  Infatuation.  Crush. But tell me, do you have a similar story? Has there ever, since that time, been a relationship, a desire so strong, pure that it had to be spoken, admitted, whether anything came of it or not? Is requited, completed love ever as strong as the secret and unrequited?

Perhaps that is what I love most about a sandy beach. You can walk and scribe and tell the world of your love or your pain and then let the tide and the ocean carry it all away and provide a blank canvas.