The day was perfect, weatherwise, so beautiful I refused even to go into the basement for the laundry for fear of missing an instant of it–even as seen from our windows. And it was a Saturday, too, which added to its sweet quintessence.

My husband “Mongo” and I looked around the house, remarked about all the work we had to do, got immediately into the car and headed to the beach.

We stopped at a small bistro some yards from the ocean and got the last two cheeseburgers and sodas of the season. Summer had ended, at least for the tourist hash house business, and in three hours, they’d be closed for the winter.

We ate and laughed and strolled out onto the beach. It was dazzling, a sight we’d seen before, but on this spellbinding day it was different somehow, surreal and even magical.

We walked and walked. The ocean was long, horizontal streaks of pearled grey and looking as if a sky giant had melted all the world’s aquamarines and sapphires and cast them, still molten, into the thick streaks of silvery lacy foam. The wind was softly persistent, but still able to sweep normal conversation into it.

A young woman refused to release a struggling kite from leaping free into that lemon azure sky. She held it taut by two strings, maneuvering it to swirl and corkscrew, swoop and figure-eight in the crystal air like a vividly colored, golden tailed stingray, and I envied her and wished we’d brought a kite too.

The beach was nearly empty, so we felt quite alone. Lovers were there, spooned against each other on blankets, oblivious to the glory around them.

Children dug enormous holes and built castles, grabbing water in their pails and racing furiously back to their architecture to make more mortar before the unbeatable ocean stole it all back. Some were naked and the sun glinted from them as if from wet, young seals and it was so beautiful to watch, primal and innocent.

We saw a pony-tailed man sitting on an old plaid blanket playing his guitar. The wind pulled the notes away into the sky, so we could not hear them.

One child drew an enormous, decorated Christmas tree which the incoming tide eventually pulled away, ornament by ornament.

And the mesmerizing beach road-runners — are they sandpipers? Their running legs a speed-blur on the water’s edge, instantly taking off as if one suddenly shouted “Fly! Quickly!” and they did, inches from the beach’s surface like minuscule performing jet planes.

The gulls swooped and squealed in the sky, beggars, inedible and obnoxious scavengers, but still, one of the world’s most beautiful creatures. In the ancient futile effort beach children will always attempt, they chased them, but never even got close.

And like a jagged, rusted knife sawing the air into raw pieces, three jet-skis suddenly appeared. But in spite of my irritation at their ruining the day’s perfection, I quite soon enjoyed watching them, black gleaming figures looking as if mounted on dolphins bucking on a trampoline, roaring into the surf, becoming airborne, shouting with the joy of immortal youth.

I loved their circus cavortings, silhouetted against the silvered, diamond studded sea, wishing I could experience the thrill of doing that, knowing I never will. I saw three sets of horse hoof prints. “Look!” I said.

“They’re still fresh.” And Mongo said “Ah, put your ear to the ground and tell us how far off they are, Kemosabe.” He’s such a caution.

And as I stood and watched and heard and salt-smelled that ocean, Mongo walked away from me, and I stared after him and thought of how our time together was narrowing, and his being far down the beach that way was significant of an inevitable fact. He turned to look back, to wait for me, and that too was portentous and this scene was not sad for me, but comforting, and it gave me peace.

I found a bit of shell, the exact color the sea, but when it dried in my hand, the colors faded.

“I shall varnish it so it will always look wet and then I’ll remember today’s ocean’s colors,” I thought. “And I shall drill a hole it in and wear it on a silken strand about my neck, and I shall be buried in it.”

And of course I never will do that. That’s too corny even for me. But I did varnish it.

It was time to leave. Back to reality. Mongo and I reluctantly went home.

If I could press a button and replay that day for us, I would not. Keeping memories solitary somehow mysteriously keeps them glowing. And there will be another day just like that for us, and we’ll return, and we’ll bring our own kite, too. But I’ll keep that day always close to me, like the bit of blue streaked shell, smooth and sun-warmed when I touch it.

LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.