Magical Realism

Sophie went back to school on Tuesday morning. I took her to the beach on Monday night as a sort of parting gift to summer. Sophie loves the beach, as you know, and when I let go of her hand, she walks straight for the water. I always think of mermaids and selkies when I see her pulled toward the ocean. I wonder if her discomfort on land, her life of struggle and seizures, is because she isn't where she's supposed to be. I like to think that Sophie breaks the rules of our "real" world. When I watch her awkward, labored gait, her tiny, inflexible feet, and her head tilted to the right, her eyes on the horizon as she makes a bee-line for the edge, I like to think that she might one day slip back into her natural sinuous self, greens and blues and grays, tendrils of hair, an effortless push off into ease and cool oblivion.