“Magic,” my daughter whispered, gazing wistfully at the moonlit sea. “I knew fairy dust was real!”

Her older sister shoved her bare feet deeper into the day’s sand castle, readying to provide the scientific explanation for the sparkling water.  With a gentle but quick hand on her shoulder, she caught my look.  Don’t interrupt this moment of wonder, my eyes implored.  Let her be.

And so that is why the three of us, dressed in breezy linen blouses and sarongs on a warm evening, leaned back on damp towels on the inner curve of a long, palm-tree lined beach in Tamarindo, Costa Rica:  to catch the next sighting of fairies scattering twinkling dust across the ocean waves, gently lapping at the shore.