Cool and foggy. Weeks are zooming past—not even keeping track of things, nothing but haiku. Where did our beautiful summer go? The steady winds move the warm surface water offshore and as the deep waters of the North Atlantic rise up the surf temperature drops nearly twenty degrees in two days. Deep abyssal cycle of Arctic waters, the buried canyons, the lost world of the ocean floor. Sam studied this in science last year—I remember quizzing him before the test. On the empty beach Elizabeth and I hunch into our sweatshirts and windbreakers to watch the boys’ surfing lessons. Can’t believe Jackson can endure the freezing water—59 degrees today! I try to swim but can hardly stand it; my face burns; Miami has ruined me. Jackson is so small and agile he can basically run up and down the big blue longboard Paul is teaching them on—I am tempted to describe him as capering like a wild monkey as he rides the afterwash in to shore. Sam is catching real waves, learning to gauge the break, turn and paddle and rise. All the time Paul stands chest deep in the cold: burly, Australian, a former lifeguard, his movie star good looks a fringe benefit Elizabeth enjoys—he married a local girl and now gives surfing lessons in summer and works as a commercial fisherman all winter, hauling fluke on his brother-in-law’s boat. A thoughtful, steady teacher, though only winter storms bring waves big enough to interest him; his wife displays the photo of a tiny figure surfing an enormous wave—Paul in his Arctic wetsuit, with hood and gloves and booties, the beach covered in snow.