The Sea and Me

There is nothing in the world like your toes in the water.

- BY ANDRE ACIMAN

“The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind." With these words, Lawrence Durrell, who loved the Mediterranean, opens Justine, the first of four novels known as the Alexandria Quartet. I grew up in Alexandria, and I know the sea and its manifold moods, from rough and somber and ferocious to downright silent and tame, almost timid, especially by mid-September, after everyone has left the homes they've rented by the sea. Then the beaches were ever so quiet, with just a few stragglers and bathers whose voices didn’t carry, while the occasional vendor of hard candied biscuits would let his voice ring out for a second, only to spell the silence more when he stopped.