Welcome to another issue of It’s Like This. Today I’ve got a throwback for you, a slightly revised version of a piece I wrote 7 years ago, when my son was a young teenager. It’s still so reflective of our spoken (and unspoken) interactions today.

He remembers the paths we walked the year before, along the beach and across the cliff-top fields toward the seal rookery. I let him lead. We never get lost.  

Each day, my teenaged son speeds down the beach, twirling two small rubber snakes in his hands. I stop trying to keep up, but hold back to see how far ahead he will get before he notices I’m not with him. He goes, and goes, and goes. Do I need to run? No, now he stops. He finds me with his eyes, far back along the beach. He turns around, never coming all the way to me, but just enough so that we are close again, walking on together in the same direction.

I spy a tiny speck of red and black crawling up the sand and I pick it up to show him. He labels it quickly –ladybug – apparently unimpressed, and moves on.

While he’s still close, I point out the dolphins who have arrived again, just offshore, their dorsal fins cresting the waves in twos and threes every few yards. I can’t tell if my son looks out long enough to spot them.

Please go to https://itslikethis.substack.com/p/awalkonthebeach2 for the full transcript.

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