Once, she'd been a pro at decompressing,
loved to sit on the back deck
of the beach house in one of our splintery Adirondack chairs for hours at a
time, staring at the ocean. She
never had a book or the paper or anything else to distract her. Just the horizon,
but it kept her attention,
her gaze unwavering. Maybe it was the absence of thought that she loved about
being out there, the
world narrowing to just the pounding of the waves as the water moved in and
out.

Sarah Dessen