The heat of the summer sun takes me back to a certain summer years ago that feels as if it were yesterday.

The acrid smell of damp earth, infused with many more tides than I have years, lingers in the humid air I know so well.

The sky warns of the late afternoon storm to come. It is beautifully blue streaked with the colors that signal a coming rain. The air is heavy.

I cross a field of nearly spent spring dandelion. In an instant, puffs of white escape, their yearning for freedom fulfilled.

Many more dreams remain and rest safely here, timidly waiting for the next season and the ones who will come along and set the seeds adrift. Dreams in the wind are set free from their moorings.

The marsh grass courts the dragonfly as one cannot resist the other.

The oysters and sea birds bear witness to this summertime romance, a temporary fling that will last a lifetime.

Many years have passed, yet this spot is much the same. Some of the trees still stand. The sand near the shore is still damp and hot. The islands in the distance have-much the same silhouette, largely unchanged, even by Hurricane Hugo.

I feel timeless here, ageless and less vulnerable than I feel any other place.

I can taste the salt in the air. I can feel it as it sticks to my skin.

The sun has now turned my skin a deeper shade. I see the effects of so many years lived this way. Each wrinkle is a road map to where I have been, each line a way of communicating the passage of time.

I turn back now as the storm is getting closer. I head for the safety of what I know; looking back toward what is yet to come.