Tide Pools with My Nephew

My nephew Theo is six and believes that the ocean is "full of tiny secrets." On a gray morning in March, I took him to the tide pools at low tide to find some.

We crouched over every rock pool for two hours. He found a hermit crab and named it Kevin. He found purple sea urchins, anemones that closed around his finger like a soft handshake, and a sea star so orange it looked fake.

He narrated everything like a documentary host, in a deep, serious voice. "Here we see the crab... looking for a new house."

On the drive home he fell asleep with sand on his cheeks and a shell clutched in his fist. I'm thirty-eight. I'd forgotten that the ocean was full of tiny secrets. I'm glad someone reminded me.