It’s yours, you bought it. Now what? Put up a fence? A bunch of signs telling us to stay out of the places we’ve always gone? Lock the gate? Threaten us with arrest? Have fun with that. We know who belongs here and nobody had to pay our way. It was given freely at birth. At our parents’ birth. And generations back to the founding of the earth. Do what you will to keep us out. We don’t want what is yours anyway. We want nothing to do with you and your plans. We barely even see you at all. Even if you buy a victory from the sellers of legal trinkets at the courthouse market, you’ll still lose in the end. We know who you are, and we know who we are. That is all the permission we need. Stop one, two, a hundred of us. You haven’t scratched the surface. We will wear you down… eventually. You’ll think you’ve won at night, but in the morning we’ll still be there on this beach you think you own, building a fire on which to roast our breakfast with the very same peace and happiness that you neglected when you chose to guard your possessions instead. We’ll warm ourselves by the fire, kept hot and burning with your tragic loss. We’ll slowly devour our meal and wash it down with whiskey and coffee. And even then, you are welcome to join us. We don’t own this beach either.

-Entry on September 9, 2017