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Friday Slide Show: Ocean Beach
11 February 2022
We had been too long away from the ocean. Our hike to Eagle Point reminded us. So late this week, we returned. Or should we say we went back.
Nature needs no plumber, no electrician, no roofer, no painter, no maid service. You find the forest or the mountain or the beach every bit as glorious as the last time you were there.
We returned to the beauty we remembered as if it had been untouched by climate change and plastic refuse.
We realize the natural world is stressed by our excess. But as we walked the beach, we knew it would outlive us. It changes slowly. The cliffs erode, the roadways are redrawn, sand is trucked in. But it seems unchanged.
There it is, as always. The ocean. As it was decades ago, waves crashing in on themselves. Set after set, their spray following them as they turn into foam that sinks into the darkened sand after running uphill faster than you can escape it.
Like long ago, children still dare to race up to the edge of the water. To scream when their feet get wet. To splash back at the churning surf and laugh into a wind that carries the sound away, above the roar of the sea.
And you will still see the solitary person bearing some unseen burden walking along the damp sand leaving footprints erased by the next rush of water. As if their burden will inevitably be lightened.
And still there is the surfer in love with the ride and the old men who cast long lines into the surf from long poles with large reels. They wait, both surfer and fisherman, because all men wait. And sometimes are rewardedl.
There are others who have always been there but we didn't stay long to see them all. Just long enough to watch the water dance and to get our feet wet.
It had been too long.
