Chesapeake

Mostly cloudy, high of 87°, passing storms

DEAR EXPOSEUR —

It is nice, from time to time, to wade from the crab-littered sand out into the bay, past the rolling mesh of translucent nettles (even if it means enduring their barbs around your knees), through the mummichogs who nibble at your legs if you pause long enough, three hundred meters out, until the water, inexplicably still shallow, turns turbulent and opens about you in all directions, to watch the passage of low clouds and shipping vessels on their way south from Baltimore, until the storm clouds gather and the eagles and the ospreys retreat for shelter and your pregnant wife, up to her chin, lifts her instant camera over her head to photograph the terns and the gulls against the red-gray sky, and the hiss of the rain drowns out the cicadas ashore, as the wide water's arms run north and south to touch the sky at either end of the Chesapeake.