Heading out the front door, I pause at my car. On one hand, I could drive. That would be fastest, and I’m so late already that I’m surprised Joy hasn’t texted to make sure I’m alive. On the other hand, it’s barely a ten-minute walk down the hill. Since the road is the only way to the square, if Dad and Joy are heading home, they won’t get past me. If I walk, I get exercise. If I walk, I get the Bay Bluff experience.

So I pull on my ball cap and sunglasses, thread the Nikon over my shoulder, and set off at an easy jog. The air is warm, the breeze grazing my skin. This isn’t the kind of day that gnarled the scrub pine with its twisted form at the very top of the road; that would be one where an angry wind spewed seawater in the name of rain. This day is hazy but kind, and how not to stop to memorialize that pine? As many times as I’ve photographed homes with man-made topiaries in glorious display at the front, this shaping is Mother Nature’s doing.

Glasses to my head, camera to my eye, I bracket my shots, then move around the tree and take several more. The exposure is tricky. With the sun rising from the ocean behind me, it is a matter of shadow and light in extremes. Inspired, I tilt the screen, raise the camera over my head, and shoot the pine against the lighter green of the ground foliage, perhaps not as dramatic as the silhouetted shots, but a more realistic rendition. Unable to resist, I return the camera to my eye and move in for several close-ups of the twist of a branch.

I could spend hours with this pine alone. Realizing that, I shoulder the camera with a vow to return and resume my jog. It’s an easy downhill stretch. Near the bottom are two driveways that lead to homes on the side of the bluff. There used to be a single mailbox at each, but the lower one now has three. I’ll have to ask Anne about that.

I’ll also have to ask her about Lina Aiello—well, not about Lina, per se, but about whom else I might run into. I’ve been gone a long time. If Anne can refresh my memory, I might be able to recognize some of the people I see and avoid the awkwardness I felt with Lina. I’ve forgotten how small Bay Bluff is.