Ariel Saramandi at The Dial:
My husband and I married in September 2018. We planned our wedding a year in advance. We didn’t even think about the sea, its surges, its rhythms. It was a feat of stupidity, for two people who grew up on an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean.
Two days after our wedding we watched the butter-hued moon rise above the water. A hiss as the waves drew back from the coast then thrashed against the shore, gaining ground by the minute. If we’d chosen to get married 48 hours later we wouldn’t have had a venue.
We were married on a stretch of basalt rock leading out to sea, an elevated slice of shore covered in sand, garnered with thatched huts, wooden tables and a structure that served as our secular altar. Now they were all soused in brine. We walked along a stretch of coast owned by a hotel group, examining the damage. The sea stripped the plump beach of sand, laying bare the fat canvas bags underneath; the waves exposed the roots of coconut trees, gnarled, purple-black like gum disease.
More here.
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