Light

After the sun set most of the adults clustered around the fire, sitting in chairs or on logs or just right in the sand, while the children (among whom my son was the oldest) raced around the long, wet stretch of beach exposed by the low tide. One parent had brought glow sticks which the children wore as necklaces, and in the darkness that's how we kept our eye on them: on guard against these circles of light receding too far.