It was a pretty little office on a Sunday morning, the rent - free. The fog had burned off; the tide was easing out and the fishing pier, still empty. I found a picnic table near the end of a long walking path. The gulls swooped by. The dew still clung to the seagrass. 

Slowly, the beach began to wake up. Two people paddled by in kayaks. A family tumbled out of the car and onto the sand. A woman moving at a clip, with her walker on wheels, stopped by to say hello. 

"What, no pajamas?" she quipped, her nod to the early hour. She was, as it turns out, the official greeter, with a pithy joke and good cheer for each person she passed and more and more did.  

A man sprinted by; two friends walked along leaning in to hear what the other was saying. Couples ran by and walked by. A black lab on a leash wandered over to the table, wondering what was what, looking for a quick scratch behind the ears.   

A young couple pushed their daughter in a stroller and then sat down at the picnic table nearby, to feed her. The mother began to sing and her daughter held her hands and stood on tiptoes on her mother's knee. She bounced and danced and called out, "Abbaaaaa!" "Ahbababababababa!" 

I was smitten and wistful at once, wishing I could rewind to a summer morning more than two decades ago, when I sang songs like that to two little ones. 

It was the best kind of Sunday morning office; the sun came out and the world walked by.