So here Frank and I are again, in the land of white beaches, warm sunshine and blue skies.

So grateful.

Grateful for a safe drive down.

Grateful that our loved ones and friends back home are safely through that record-shattering cold and doing well.

Grateful for sunny days. Grateful that, although it is cold for here (down to 24 this week, with several hard freezes), we can still walk (me) and run (Frank) on the beach each day.

And grateful for moments of wonder, which I am collecting this year, instead of shells or postcards.

They are everywhere, if you look for them.

At the Mississippi Aquarium, where we went last week:

At a school of silver false pilchard swimming, in mysterious and perfect synchronization, around and around their three-story glass home.

At learning that each dolphin’s vocalization sound is unique to that dolphin, and that each dolphin’s tail is as individual and distinct as human fingerprints.

At a shiny-eyed dolphin, bright eyes fixed on the human trainer on my side of the glass wall, watching her hands and, at her signal, swimming up to smack his tail hard on the water, dousing her and us. (Part of that wonder is, “wonder”ing, what do dolphins make of our world, when they see us through that glass?)

At the wondrous kindness of people who spent months tending a severely injured green sea turtle until she recovered enough to live out her days at the Aquarium, slowly swimming around in her ponderous way, thinking slow turtle thoughts.

But moments of wonder also blossom much closer to home:

The amaryllis on my windowsill, a Christmas present, growing out of a bubble of wax, without water, without food, throwing all that it is into one glorious bloom after another.

New pictures of my grandchildren, showing up unexpectedly on the Aura frame that my husband gave me for Christmas.

The neighbor’s cat, who keeps me company while I sit writing on the porch of our little house, and who this morning I saw scramble up a tree trunk and into the tree in a quarter of a second.

The living beach that I walk on each morning, and all the creatures who are hidden there. Like the sand crabs, who eat the sea’s smorgasbord while hiding in small holes in the sand, antennas wiggling, and who know, although they have never been taught, to spend their lives on the move, chasing that bright tumble of waves against the beach that they call home.

Postcards fade.  Shells collect dust.

But moments of wonder, they last forever.