Book excerpt: Inside this inspiring little book, author and artist Sandy Gingras offers ways to find peace, hope, and healing at the beach. Each "walk" is a mini-essay about self-discovery, particularly a woman's self-discovery. Sandy muses about learning patience, leaving it all behind, taking risks and chances, recovering after storms, enduring and gaining strength, and loving and losing and loving again. Gingras finds inspiration in beachy moments and shows us that lessons are everywhere on her beach walks--in a split shell, in a dribble castle, in an upside-down horseshoe crab, in a green jetty, and in the freedom of wearing nothing but a bathing suit. Gingras's watercolors invite you to come along on her "walks." Even if you can't actually walk on the beach each day, Walks on the Beach gives you the sense that you have a little sand between your toes, a little beach in your heart, and a little beach philosophy in your everyday life.