Twenty years later I’m back at Circle Beach with my young daughter. I watch her splash in the same water that my cousins and I called home. She and I walk the long, rocky shore at low tide and watch hundreds of hermit crabs run in front of our wet toes and quickly descend underground.  It’s another bright day at our family’s quiet paradise and my mother, now a grandmother of 6, unwraps her hot foils for the next generation. I sit back onto some of the same chairs we carried down all those years ago and take a bite of something she packed as I gaze across this majestic bay that has been the epicenter of so much of my happiness. Colored sails zip past us as new children splash and squeal with glee.  Nothing has changed.  Circle is the same beautiful beach from our childhood. The only difference is that now I may only have half of mom’s homemade lunch. Somewhere between those memorable summers and now, I found out about calories.

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