Tag Archives: ocean

May 22

22 Monday May 2017

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Yesterday’s morning bed looked a hot mess, all but the mattress pulled down onto the floor. Could’ve been hot sex or could’ve been another sleepless night, too hot in a t-shirt and a stuffy room.  I’ll leave it to you to decide which one was more likely.

This morning’s bed I left early, 4:30, awakened by voices outside, young men either headed to the gym or early call to work.   I knew there was no going back to any kind of rest or sleep, so I pulled on yesterday’s clothes and ventured outside.  The finches are strenuous early, morning doves and gulls silent. It’s a farther walk to where I can hear the water but it never quite drowns out the sound of birds singing in the dark.

I sat in the damp sand, water black but for little white wave crests that break just before the shore, that moment when they’re good and ready.  Sunrise in 48 minutes. I doubt I will be able to sit still that long.  A small container ship creeps across the bay, barely silhouetted by the town lights. Hampton bridge is busy, as always. I will not see the lights go out this morning.  Town lights behind me make the night sky glow pink and blue in the clouds.

Two buoys appear in the bay, inky things in the dark, but they are orange in daylight. My eyes say they weren’t there a minute ago, but of course they were.  When will the dolphins return?  I can see bird silhouettes flying now.  They weren’t there a minute ago, but of course they were.  Sunrise in 20 minutes.  I doubt I will be able to sit still that long.

Mostly I just breathe. I focus on the scent that arrives in me. There is a faint chemical smell in the air with a tint of the seaweed clumps that arrived during those hours I could not sleep.   I smooth the sand down that lies before my crossed knees but no words come. It’s just damp, cool sand with a side order of things I should not be thinking.  But why shouldn’t I? What better place to let the words come and then go in a place where there are no dogs yipping, the rain has not yet begun to fall?

I leave before the sun rises in a sky ready for rain. I need no proof the hours moved by seeing a glowing orb.  I take with me a different kind of beauty, when the eyes adjust to dim light and can see what wasn’t there but a moment ago.

 

Man v Wave

20 Saturday May 2017

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Virginia got a federal grant to renew some of its beaches that have eroded over the years.  Funny thing, that ocean, how it hurricanes and nor’easters now and then, changing the landscape at will.  Some of my neighbors grumbled that the money could have been better spent, while most of us believe this project is important to protect our homes from worse-than-usual flooding.  I had no idea the huge change we were in for.

I took pictures of the process, and it’s not much to see but a lot of earth moving equipment, large pipes, and a “cage” that strained the water and sand-from-elsewhere for large debris before it was tamped down.  The Army Corps of Engineers worked 24/7 for weeks to complete the project.  They were a nice bunch of people, very forthcoming with information, always said hello or waved as we went by.  (Perhaps they knew that not everyone was happy that the excavator was shaking peoples homes in the middle of the night.)  20170513_040738.jpg

A few days ago I wandered out and the beach had a strange smell, a chemical smell, very faint, one that I could not identify but it sure wasn’t the scent of organic matter drying in the sun as we are used to.  This is a rock I found in situ. Not very exciting, but I thought it looked cool as hell in the newborn (and strange-smelling) mud of this beach.20170518_093212

I found this guy and tossed him back out into the ocean.20170518_093330

This morning I got up after sunrise and walked down to the beach. All the pipes and equipment is gone. All that remains are a few excavator tracks, and the youngsters footsteps as they partied late into the night.   It looks nothing like the way I found it on my first afternoon as the new kid on the Spit.  I’m so glad I took pictures and video to record those gentle dunes carved by time.

The sandbars are gone. Those were happy havens for mothers who wanted to share a beach day with their toddlers:  The sand was a perfect toy in just the right depth of water.  Seagulls and flounder hunted and left their delicate tracks. Sea skates got stranded there.  I wrote precious words on those damp lands at low tide. My feet tracked in stubborn bits of clam shell the size of a pencil point that stuck to my toes.  The water made music as it trickled in and converged between the breakwaters, rock “hedges” that were meant to keep out the most fearsome waves.  The beach is wet cappuccino now.  The weathered ivory sand grains and tiny pebbles destined to become grains are covered in a damp silt now. The neighbors seem to love that it feels smoother to walk on.  I hear that it will bleach under the sun and we’ll like it even more.  That remains to be seen.  The waterline is 100 extra feet away but that’s not what I’m thinking about today.

Capture the details. Memorize the curves, the scent, the grit between your toes because tomorrow it will look like cappuccino mud.   Yeah, the birds will eat and the dolphins will come back eventually. The incoming tide will make a new kind of music.   The sandbars might return with the next hurricane, who knows?  It’s all just proof that few things will be right there where you left it, and to treasure the time that is given.

I Belong To Me (While Spite Laughs in the Background)

16 Tuesday May 2017

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I pledge allegiance to

Not You.

I will not kneel.  I will not bow. Kiss the tip of your sword, your robe, or your ring and swear fealty.

Imagine the day that I did not murder my neighbor, refused to sacrifice her exalted body on the altar to feed the god with her hot, muscular heart… but the sun rose still, my hands clean.  Again. And again.

Imagine the day that I did not offer the best of my wheat, meat, and wine to the god in his tent so he would overlook my sins because my children were hungry and needed every piece of that lamb to survive the winter? The sin is to let my children starve, buddy.

Imagine the day that I took my worship away from you. I suppose I should confess it was because you are no longer the salt of my pleasure but salt in the wound. It burned, then cleansed, and helped me see that our gods dissolve and cloud the water.  I cannot drink that water for it would kill me. I still need you, but I no longer worship you.

And the sun rose still.  Again. And again.

Morning Musings

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

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I hadn’t planned on waking with a jolt, but it happens sometimes. I open my eyes to a bright flash, like lightning, but there is no storm here.  Sunrise soon, so I slip into slouchy clothes, add another jacket because the winds are northeast, and you know what that means.  The dog walkers were out trying to be quiet, but their fluffies have one job and they are going to do that job every morning: yip at anything that moves, and that’s okay. By now most of them know I’m not bite-worthy, so they let me scritch their wiry necks and set them on their way.

I stand in the sand with camera phone in hand waiting for the molten orb to rise from the Atlantic, noting the ceiling covered by rows of narrow clouds, adjoined, pink, soon to be yellow then white when the whole thing is done.  I watch the fluffies trot across wind-blown dunes. I see early crab tracks and wonder if they’re sorry they got up too soon.  In the west, a pillar of rainbow over the Hampton bridge.

The laughing gulls were quiet for most of the year, but now that the “skimmer” gulls have arrived, the laughing gulls call constantly. Laughing gulls are more likely to share the breakwaters with the fuller-bodied gulls or tiny plovers who are no threat to anyone.   The skimmers fly by in the mornings but do most of their work of feeding in the evenings, skimming the tideline open-mouthed and faster than a white feathered bullet. Their morning calls are demure compared to the coarse laughing gulls, their bodies are the epitome of sleek, narrow, curved, pale, and far more seasonal. They are white silk arrows flown from heaven, and that seems to piss off the laughing gulls.

There is a tiny bird perched on the dead tree limb outside my window, breast curved and deep. He silently pivots like an unsure weather vane. What is he looking for?

My neighbor says goodbye to her cat on the windowsill every morning; she doesn’t know I see this, and she greets him when she returns before she opens the door.  I met her across the balcony this morning. I said hello, and she “confessed” her ritual. I think she felt like she was caught like a deer in the headlights.  We haven’t spoken but a few words.  I told her, “You should see him when you’re not home. All the parties. Had to call the cops a few times.” one-two-three…. She had no idea what I was talking about, but eventually she smiled and said, “You’re funny, ” and I wished her a great day as she smiled and made her way down the stairs.

Mad Libs was a fun game, and sometimes Jimmy Fallon, the late show host, fills out a Mad Libs form and acts out a scene based on the guests’ words.  I’ve watched Jimmy coax a great many words from his guests, and most of them disappoint me. They’re like me, trying to remember what’s a noun, verb, adjective. Most guest replies are often bland like a primary color wheel, and it informs me more deeply than a silly interview.  This morning I am pleased with Kevin Spacey who, unsurprisingly, immediately, chose wonderful and interesting words.  This matters to me, not so much because I want to win a date with Kevin Spacey, but more because it reaffirms my need for more, my need to be in the company of people who are curious about the world, who know things that I do not. Those who touch the mermaid of me.

A Sensual Morning

13 Thursday Apr 2017

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Sounds. Sleeping with the windows open brings me sounds, or sometimes thoughts, in one window and out the other.  Ghosts of truck tires, distant. A stiff breeze. Silence. I woke to the spotlight in my face, the moon fierce in the window. Damn, girl, don’t you know I’m tryna sleep here? (Me and her got beef, her being a silent witness and all, and I’m not going to stand for it anymore.)  I turn over to begin again.  Silence. A stiff breeze.  He began singing in the dark, an hour before the paler blue comes. He is loud, energetic as he sings the sun, singlehandedly, up from the water and into the sky. My dear friend, I wish you knew more than two lyrics, broken record dawn patrol. That’s all right. You have a job to do, and I’ll not shoo you away.

Sounds. I hear your feet below me pounding the floor as you walk from room to room which is a miracle because my hearing is blurry at best. Perhaps I feel the vibration through the walls, or I just know what to listen for.  Is it too soon to prepare myself for the slam of your door as you embark on another office day? Too soon to prepare my snarky comment, “Have a nice day!” as I watch your back, wet hair plastered to your head, stomping off to your car? Yes. It is too soon. I don’t know if responding like this to someone else’s energy is good or bad. It informs me of my own emotional tendencies, my inability to forgive “trespasses,” and tells me I should send her off with blessings if nothing else.

North wind this morning. I can see and hear the wavelets clearly, the bay scent is strong and clean. Mourning dove plays his reed. A wind-chime tinks. Refrigerator hums. Pick-up trucks throaty exhaust. Finch father calling his little ones for flight lessons today, a happy racket. Sounds like someone striking a toothbrush on the edge of the sink to cast off excess water, one two three.

By now the maintenance people would be power washing the walkways, using the leaf blower to clear off excess beach debris or the lawn edger to manicure the little bits of grass in the courtyard, but not this morning. I have a day to consider my tasks. To do them or not do them, it’s as simple as that, so sayeth Henry Rollins.  To think about another neighbor who surprises me all the time. You never really know a woman, it seems. Or anyone. I probably won’t write down at the beach today in my journal that smells like olive oil (long story) because it’s a little chilly out there, north wind and all. So many things are calling and it’s a blessing to take each one down at a time.

Harbor Wave

23 Thursday Feb 2017

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My ringtone sounds like a rotary phone when an incoming call arrives. It used to be “The Final Countdown” by Europe, but you know?  You have to change things up after a while.  Tonight my phone went off and it was Mike who seemed to want a voice to keep him company on the last leg of a drive home.  We talked and I paced from room to room (my apartment is two rooms)  as per my habit, which probably didn’t make my downstairs neighbor too happy, but oh well.

After a while I stepped outside and deemed the air nice enough for a walk.  I slipped my rainboots on over bare feet and walked down to the ocean, talking all the way.  My calf high boots are heavy plastic, the color of Welch’s grape juice with dark purple leopard spots.  When Mike got to where he was going, we rang off.  I tucked the phone into my back pocket and decided to stay.  Alone on the beach in the dark is my favorite place. It’s just heaven.  No wind tonight, not too cold. A good night to keep going.  I ambled east towards my favorite place, that spot where the water has a voice and character unlike any other I’ve heard around here.  The water was transitioning from low to high tide. At this moment the water was low, almost still, not interested in the toes of my boots.

I stood on the shore at the edge of the sandbar, windless, standing in puddle water when I noticed that the water started to run backward, fast,  little foam crests running back and away from the shore.  Riptide? I thought that only happened in big waves, in summer daylight, which was me just having a laugh with myself.   From a year of being here I know that boat wake happens about 10 minutes after a large vessel has gone by, but there was no vessel to be found in any direction.  Back went the water, pulling back more and more.  Okay.  I kept watching.   Then the water started to come back in, low and normal as a breath, but then a crest out of nowhere, the water raised up high from nowhere, surging up and over my rain boots, cold water washing over the tops and I stood there in disbelief that water so calm and demure one moment could rise up and paint me for a fool, breaching my boots, soaking my calves and bare feet.   This was a tidal tsunami, just a little one, and no one will believe me unless they saw it with their own eyes.  I stood in disbelief because I wanted to see if it would happen again, and it did, a few times.  Then the water calmed, no more crested waves; it had gone back to its puddling self, a bay shifting from low to high tide.

I’ve heard it said that we should never turn our back on the ocean. I’ve seen it too many times to say that’s just an old wives’ tale. She is an immortal being, and I am in awe of her. It’s good to be reminded of just how small and insignificant I am, and not waste a precious moment.

January 31

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

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To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question.* Sometimes you just have to rise in the dark, stuff your feet into socks and boots and take a long walk on the beach. Sleep’s out of the question now.  Nobody can see your messy hair, it’s under a hat for heaven’s sake.

I walked west towards the bridge, but the traffic noise makes me wrinkle my nose.  I turned and walked east and saw that look. You know the one. The sky is opening one eyelid, so very slowly. Her lids are indigo, navy, cobalt. She does not appreciate the orange streetlight’s glare. One side of her face is soft pink, then hot glowing magenta, but the colors cool quickly and pale yellow dawns. I’m not looking for a sunrise just now. I turn and walk into the sandbar to watch the shallow waters crisscross converge. The sand “melts” under my heels and if I were a kid I would holler to my friends, “Help! Quicksand!” And we would run away laughing because we got away just in time.

What am I looking for in this low tide place?  Mermaids. A shark fin. A bird no one sees in daylight.  Behind me a flock of plovers roll by like cotton balls in a breeze.  I am tempted to sit down in the cold water but then I hear the yip yap of two mop dogs. The spell is broken.

 

*apologies to Wild Bill Shakespeare

A Morning for Wonder

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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I awoke to the sound of the sky changing color.  I almost set my alarm clock to give me just 15 minutes more, but instead I swung legs over the bed and dressed in the dark, eyes half-glued shut.  My favorite weather app tells me it will begin to rain in 8 minutes, and I decide to wear my hoodie instead of a rain jacket, it’s warmer after all, and what does an app really know, anyway?

I believe the sun lured me out of bed this morning with a little dare. He said, “If you come for a walk I will show you something that will make you glad.”  I hustled down to the sand looking for ocean and there it was, right where I left it. I turned east, looking for Juliet, and the sun let a few wide bands of gossamer, in rose, come through the clouds. I stood still, and I know for sure the sun said, “See? Aren’t you glad?”

I trespassed ten steps through Werner’s sand (you know he loves his fences and his signs), keeping my eye on the sunrise but it faded rapidly.  The 10th street stairs haven’t been repaired from the hungry bite of hurricane Matthew. When did this graffiti arrive on the hanging wood, and why hadn’t I noticed it before?  Six large flocks of crows flew past heading northwest. I wonder why.  And it begins to rain.  I think of the chores I have this morning, and the spell of the sun is broken.

I am typing in a dark apartment waiting for the bathroom to warm up.  My hoodie hangs from a hook on the door, soaked.  It sounds like a creature has come to live in the ceiling above my kitchen. Perhaps he or she thought it was a good time to move in while I was gone. Meanwhile, in the back bay, the soaking flag clings to its white pole trying to escape the cold rain.  A mountain-sized bee has been sounding the bay, but it has gone quiet now.  No other sounds but little laptop typing, no light but what the sun can give behind thick layers of gray sky. I wonder if I will feel a door slam soon and will I embrace it as proof of life and let it go with a smile, or will I greet it with rolling eyes and gritted jaw, proof that I just can’t let things go.   I wonder when I will reply to my brother’s email, another ocean I must cross. I wonder if my wax plant will continue to thrive since I had to give it a new place to grow.  I wonder when I will finish reading that book, and what will I do with the notes I’ve been taking, or will I leave it unfinished because I never want it to end?   What will I do with the word “transformation?” It’s everywhere now, unleaving me like the soundtrack for Red October that’s been playing in my head for weeks.  Well.  I couldn’t ask for a better sound in my head while getting things done.  My son would approve.

December 20

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

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I awoke at midnight. I slipped into the kitchen in my t-shirt and bare feet, the floor quite cold and tapped the nightlight on so I could pour something cold into my cup and not onto the counter.  I drank the water and wondered if I would be able to get back to sleep.  I dreamed that Chris Pratt came to visit me at my family’s house in the woods, at night, and it was like a car cruise, all those sleepers, hot rods, rat rods parked among small dirt clearings and the trees.  He took one out for a drive and eventually found a place to park among the trees and their roots that could take out a transmission if you weren’t careful.  We knew each other.  We liked each other.  We had too many moments of looking and not speaking because family was around.  He took my hands and we said a few things without speaking, it was all just eye contact, then he let go because it was time for him to leave. Hours later I wanted to text him, “U up?” but decided against the idea, and that felt right.  All those beautiful hot rods their pastel paint faintly lit by diffused headlights, the way they filmed the X-Files in Vancouver forests…

I awoke at 6:15 wondering how morning came so fast. I said, “I will dream of Vikings and the oceans they live upon,” over and over, so it must have done the trick to get me back to sleep.  Then I wondered why there were flashing lights on the wall, and could flashing lights actually wake me up?  There was an emergency vehicle (perhaps a tow truck?) in the neighbor’s yard and I wondered, “Now what?” Seemed like everything was stable, so I wandered into the kitchen, and it smelled like somebody’s been cookin’ in here, yeah, Jamaican!  I pulled on some clothes and went down to see the ocean, low tide, but the wind busy making waves and slamming the beach quite flat.  One of our supply ships was coming in beneath an angled sky, half dark, half illuminated by the beginnings of sunrise. God it was too cold to walk far, and I realized I’d have to start wearing my hiking wool if the walks were to continue in these conditions.  When I returned to the house, so grateful for the warmth, my mind began making lists, and I went about wiping down weeping windowsills.  Winter solstice is coming; I want to be ready.  A long drive.  Gifts to put finishing touches on. I will file those papers last, probably, and vacuum later because it might disturb the granite-faced lady who lives downstairs.

The ladies who live in these buildings, their faces are all so grim. Most of them are single. Their comings and goings are fairly regular, and their resting faces look so hard. There are two exceptions: one lady who lives with her cats, she walks with her chin up and a small smile, and the other is a new mother who is pretty and composed no matter what’s going on.  I know what my resting face looks like, and it’s so hard to smile when all I can hear is my ears ringing, and feeling like I’m walking alongside some magnificent grand canyon, prepared to fall in at any moment.

I sat with the neighbors two days ago on the beach.  It was 70 degrees on a December afternoon.  A laughing gull patronized me for food. Perhaps she thought I was a good candidate because I am the “bag lady” of the beach, bringing all my stuff down there in a plastic tote, but never food.  Sorry, gull, please move down the line.  Me and my neighbors sat in silence for hours. I noticed the polish had vanished from all but two of my toes. I noticed that everyone came down to the beach to walk, to use metal detectors, to let their children bolt into frigid waters but they didn’t care, to walk their dogs, to chat on cellphones.  I believe we all knew it would be one of the few remaining days the sun and atmosphere would be kind enough to let us walk barefoot in the sand, comfortably. I was prepared to fall, I am always prepared to fall, to suffer, and regret at any moment, and I wondered if I would ever learn to let go of that gloom.