Sunday Afternoon Beach Report

The sand was a tangle of things this afternoon.

The ocean churned up, the breakers murky with sand, or algae, or crud washed in from the rains.

Looking back toward the dunes, clouds towered like mountains.

 A group of adolescent boys jousted with bamboo. The frightening whack and thwack of the branches was undone by their shrieks--voices still undistinguishable from the voices of little girls.

Beach goers found other uses for the bamboo too.

Some of us were content to sit and wonder at all of it.

Sometimes I wonder how things might have turned out if I'd raised my children here.

Saturday Beach Report

It was 2018 when I last walked on the beach. The Christmas tree was still up, and I had a houseful of guests. Since then the guests have all gone home, the beach has been pounded with high surf as five different storms tried to drown the memory of fires and drought,  and I've finally recovered from  pneumonia.

Being on the sand today, I felt like a visitor to a strange land. The dredger is in the harbor making noise, and the beach is a tangle of blackened debris--detritus from the the Malibu fire, I guess, and huge pieces of things lay marooned here and there as if flung ashore by the angry hand of some irritable god.

This, I've heard, is a piece of the Ventura pier, washed ashore while I was still coughing and spending the day in my pajamas.

It's encrusted with its history, like all of us, whether we remain in place or are uprooted by force.

The world is brimming with turmoil these days. I feel lucky to be part of it.

Saturday Morning Beach Report

Big waves. Strong light. Sand bermed up, water pooling into salty lakes, debris etching the sand.

There were many birds taking advantage of the pools of water, and on the dry sand there were turkey vultures. Maybe they were displaced by the fires. Maybe they heard the crash of the waves and knew there would be carnage for them to feast on. Turkey vultures do show up on the beach from time to time--but they're not a regular feature.

Later this afternoon at home, I sat in my bedroom, reading, and the door to the hall was open.  I looked up and caught a beam of light sitting in the chair. The days are short, but the light is dramatic this time of year--both inside and out.

What is isn't, What isn't is

We're breaking records here. Hottest summer. Most fires. Now the biggest fire ever in California's is no longer the biggest. All over the globe there's been the highest high and the lowest low.

And this is the longest in my blogging history since I've blogged. I'm reading instead. Glued to the news. Thinking about how things look like one thing and are really another or, even worse,  that things are exactly as they appear and yet we are mired in inaction.

As still as this heron. How perfectly camouflaged, I thought. Nature is so brilliant. No fish will see that heron coming. Look closely. See it there against the wall to the left of the post on the boat dock? It moved its neck just a second before I went to get the binoculars to check it out more closely.

But it's not a heron at all. It's a piece of sun bleached algae or paper stuck to the wall. The "neck" moves because it's not completely adhered.

Remember this?  Can you tell a satellite dish from a heron? How about shit from Shinola?

Here's a beached sea lion.

And this, in actuality, is a rather crowded beach.

And this? That piece of stone there in the middle?

Well, it could be my heart--because don't we have to harden our hearts to survive this mess? I suppose there's an argument for that. But for now, I'm just letting the news break my heart every single day. If we can't feel the trouble we're in, our brains will atrophy too.

One thing for sure, I know whale shit when I see it.

Sunday Morning Beach Report

Who has time to walk on the beach anymore when gluing one's self to the news seems the most important thing to do? Somewhere in the distance there must be someone or something that can save us. Or so we hope. And hope. And hope. And we are doing things to support those hopes. But still.

We can't see the forest for the trees most days. This story. That story. Personally, I'm obsessed with Paul Manafort. I keep going to the website of the institution where he is jailed to check and re-check that he's still inside.

Meanwhile there is a place called Santa Cruz Island. I'm training to lead hikes there. On this island where there is no cable TV, there is the Channel Islands Fox. This fox is an island dwarf that does not exist outside of the Channel Islands. Smaller than a regular fox--a mere four pounds or so--due to it's fluffiness it appears to be the size of a house cat. There. I hope I've transported you to somewhere else for a moment. Let us ponder how things can get smaller when everything else looms large.

And when things loom large, perhaps we should think of this.

In any event,"my" beach looked like this today.

I hope you are well. Sending love.

Monday Morning Beach Report

Sometimes turning around and looking back is just as beautiful as facing forward.

And remember to look up.

State of the State of Margaritaville

Yesterday it was  a day of bureaucratic malfunction: Three hours on the phone with 4 different IRS departments (to no avail), a postcard claiming I ignored my jury service (nope, never got the summons), and a mysterious email from the HOA about an emergency executive board meeting with the association's attorney (uh-oh, please no--not another HOA embezzlement!) And no, the HOA can't give out any more information at this time. I asked myself if  it is really true that for much of the last decade I have been engaged in some kind of battle. That's how I felt.  I think we all feel like that, right?

Then there are the rippling days where there's enough happening, but it's good stuff.

 

And days when at first you think that something's caught on fire again, but really it's just the sunset.

Or days when there's plenty of wind to soar, but not enough to blow you away.

There's so much that's horrible and wrong with so many things in our country right now. I feel the ache of it at the first glimpse of the morning's newspapers every single day.

Still, I'm happy for the good things. If you think this is a wonderful place, text Y for yes.

Things that Happened this Weekend

There was a party on the beach. I wasn't invited to this party thrown by people I don't know.
But despite this, the world turned to silver.

Even the birds turned silver. And when I came home and looked in the mirror, my hair was silver too.

Beach Report: Yesterday and Today

According to the Washington Post and other sources, the Innuit language has at least 50 words for snow. There ought to be that many words to describe the grays, blues, greens, and silvers that color the ocean. Probably we need a dozen words for pink and lavender too. Maybe a few words for gold while we're at it. It never looks the same to me.

And there's the human component. People can't help making things.

Pygmy mammoths contemplating a return to the Channel Islands

Pygmy mammoths are a real thing--in case you don't already know. 

"In 1994, paleontologists made the remarkable discovery of a pygmy mammoth on Santa Rosa Island, the most complete collection of its kind in the world. Found only on the California Channel Islandsand nowhere else in the world, the pygmy mammothwas probably a small form of the Columbian mammothfound on the mainland."

And sometimes nature imitates nature.

Driftwood sealions frolic on the sand

Saturday Morning Beach Report: Many Musings

It was all shimmer and shine this morning, the clouds in the distance as thick as marshmallows. Next to the water the sand was scooped low and a companion mountain of sand hid the houses. I'm on a deserted island, I told myself. No one lives here.

Farther along the sand was etch-a-sketched with giant drawings, silty black debris tracing out mountain ranges.

The debris line was full of shell and stones and charred-looking pieces of wood. This couldn't be from the fires, I thought to myself. There's been no rain to wash it into the ocean.

But the water itself was, in places, inky black with it--whatever it is. I have seen the beach like this at times in the past, but maybe even then it was airborne fire debris from somewhere.

2017 changed the landscape of this beach I walk on. The giant wall of rock that forms harbor mouth is no longer a wall from the beach side. The lower 90% of the wall is now covered by sand, and the sign (if it's not buried too) that proclaims Danger! No Climbing! would seem ridiculous since you can now just walk onto the top of the wall. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, (sandstorm of fake news, erosion of decency, buried alive by stupidity and cruelty) but I'm too busy thinking that I'd like to have a job some day naming things. If there's a new pink lipstick for 2018, I'd like to call it Godwit Pink.

It's a pity I'm not a real photographer, but if you look closely, maybe you can see the pink of this bird's beak. It's just so darn pretty.