My skin has turned the colour of hazelnuts. I float, and it glistens below the surface and catches the white filament lines from the sun. Nut brown in aqua. A wave laps into the sand, thins, dissolves, and is gone. Then another. Then quiet.
The steps at my hut are sandy and they burn against my bare feet. Coconut wood, baked silver and warped in the sun. It is just noon. Hang my towel on the clothesline. The horizon shimmers, azure over emerald. There is another island. The palms rustle, and then again, and then quiet. Like yesterday. Like tomorrow.
Mark is a traveller and writer and a marathon runner. He loves wine with a good mouth-feel, films that make him laugh, and a good rack of BBQ ribs (which begs the question; is there such a thing as a bad rack of BBQ ribs?). His first book, the travel memoir Crescent Moon Over Laos, was published in 2014. His other writing includes smaller travel pieces and of the commonalities and influences that shape and inform our individual and collective lives. A college instructor by training, Mark has lived and taught in both Nagoya and Kyoto, Japan, the Emirate of Sharjah in the UAE, and both Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. At 59, he finally took the plunge and married his long-term partner. He lives, with increasing contentedness, in Richmond, British Columbia, with his new wife and their two cats, and when he isn't running or writing or drinking wine, tends the grape vines in their garden and marvels at what sun and water and time can create.