I thought about the stars I used to gaze at in the clear, untampered night skies of dark Mediterranean nights like glinting diamonds, unfiltered, no smog or light to compete with. I’d push my feet and hands deep into the warm sand and linger over a soft blanket, the one I bought on the beach one day from the Moroccan man who gave a free scarf to the little boy with the hair down to his waist and no shirt on. He danced with his little scraw legs in the sand. I thought his parents were gypsies, but it didn’t matter. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. Only at first, I thought he was a girl, and when they told me otherwise, I glanced over and realized that the man from Morocco went back to his tent on the beach to sleep every night. That one day and night stood out to me, hearing only air and wind and water washing ashore, teasing my feet. The gypsies speaking intermediary English to the Moroccan man with him speaking back. And how nobody cared or judged or even interrupted because a common language was spoken, which was Love. It was the kind of air and acceptance you remembered as a child, because it was that long ago since you took a clean, deep breath so easily in, and even easier out. Easy. No stress. No judgments. Just sounds.
