i bury myself in pebbles up to my head. a russian fellow watches with mister. as i decided to bury myself the russian appeared, gesturing either to ask if the dog was ok or if i minded him sharing our little beach. i agreed to whatever he asked. i was faintly shy about burying myself in front of a stranger, but as he was russian, and he somehow did not feel like a stranger, i proceeded to bury myself, and it felt good. real good. i recommend live burial. self burial that is. 
we managed to share a good deal of biographical information and also talk about america and russia with zero russian and minimal english. mainly with eyes and gestures, and like mental osmosis. i know he has two girls and a boy and one girl is a biology professor at northwestern and the other an airplane engineer and the boy, oy, i forget. and his wife died in russia i think and he started to tear up about russia and his wife and not being able to go back because she's dead and russia's changed and he's eighty. he gestured at the tall buildings, i'm an engineer. 
i felt his heart, you know, big like russia, not like the rulers, like the people, and he got that we were the people, that our governments, threatening, bombing, that is not the people, that governments are not people any more than corporations, in fact they are not people in precisely the same way, they have a lower calling, money and power, the antitheses of life. the people want to swim, to embrace one another, strangers alike, to live, as alexander says, in word and gesture, in peace.

and peace is what i felt buried in cool pebbles with my dog and my russian now american friend. there's a spirit of place and where you are is what you are if you want to be there and you have peace you are lucky indeed. with all the war and conquest going on it is sweet to be buried in cool pebbles in a pocket of peace with the waves singing a chorus of waves of which the listener is the song.