A short walk from Stephen's house, all bloomed white. It was heavenly. Just off the sound, one foot on the beach, I stood at the bottom of a stairway feeling wild as Wallace. I looked suddenly up. Nature was shouting in lacy bloom, but leaning over, close, like aunts in a childhood room. The tide behind me, running away, left boulders to bump the mud, and weed sucking in the sun. I noted golf balls scattered where they had fallen when some fool beat them from an English patch of grass above into the innocent sea. What's left? Only the Proustian smell of public staircase-- cheeky cowslip, with a resonant back-note of wee. David Ritchie returned to Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html