...On my beachwalk this morning I sit absorbing the moisture and the moment as I filter tiny grains of shiny quartz sand through my fingers. The salt of the sea rubs off and sticks to my hand, leaving a residue I try to brush off on my jacket. But my fingers continue to feel damp and I realize I can’t brush off the sea. It clings to me with a magnetism that heals as it pulls me close and seeps into my inner being. When I first began walking the beach, I did not know there is a healing the sea brings. It rolls in with every breaking wave, spraying its spirit upon the shore in misty droplets and hangs suspended, waiting to be inhaled by any willing wanderer. Like the laying on of hands, it has power for those who embrace it.

My first times spent on this wild, deserted beach were adventures so new to me I could only appreciate a sense of being here, recognizing I was ignorant of most of its aspects. Every shell, plant and bit of sea life was a mystery to me, but something I wanted to know about. So for my own satisfaction, I began to research and collect information. As time went by and I learned about the sea and the mysteries offered up on its sandy, rocky shore, I was surprised to find I was learning about myself as well. And this is how my concept of beachwalk came into being...

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Beachwalk

...It is January 1st, New Year’s Day. While most people are watching football bowl games, I prefer to spend the afternoon at the beach checking out tide pools. An exceptionally low tide has left a wide expanse of uneven sand and rocky basins filled with sea water, a perfect invitation for observation of intertidal dwellers hidden in nooks amidst seaweed and algae covered rocks. Clumps of surf grass, ordinarily undulating back and forth with each wave surge, now lie flat upon the sea-sculpted, rock layer separating sandy beach from deeper water off shore. Missing is the vibrant, pulsating sound of booming waves; there is no ebb and flow of swirling sea water from the surf. Instead, a stillness prevails. The beach is transformed into a quiet garden of shallow pools filled with intertidal sea life.

As I pick my way over slippery, algae-covered rocks peppered with tiny Periwinkle Snails, I try to avoid crushing them with my feet while making my way seaward. But their abundance defeats my efforts. I pause and crouch down to watch Turban Snail shells inhabited by Hermit Crabs move slowly across the bottom of a pool, leaving wiggly trails in the sand. A brief silver flash catches the corner of my eye as an Opaleye, alerted by my shadow crossing its pool, scurries for cover. I sit quietly and wait until this minnow-sized fish, sensing no movement above, feels safe enough to leave its hiding place and swim confidently around...

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Tidepools

Whales

...Covered with sweat, my windbreaker plastered to my back from fine mist in the pale morning, my walk nearly finished, I climb the drainage channel to head for home, a warm shower and some breakfast. At the top of the bluff I pause and turn back for one last look at the sandy shoreline and seemingly infinite sea spread before me. There, in the middle of my living seascape, an enormous dark shape explodes from the gray water amid a cloak of foam and spray. Twisting in mid air, the whale throws sheets of water skyward as it crashes back into the white-capped waves. I stand almost paralyzed with amazement and awe, watching, as another gigantic black shape rises from the depths, spirals in the air and splashes down into waves and foam. “Whales, breaching,” I whisper aloud, as I stand, afraid to blink, for fear I will miss an instant of this incredible sight.

This was my first breathtaking whale watching experience at Crystal Cove. Other times, I had witnessed whales spouting, spewing columns of moist, hot breath into the air as they surfaced to breathe. I had marveled at the sight of their two-lobed, black, tail flukes flipping gracefully above the water’s surface in preparation for a deep dive. But had it not been my habit to pause on the bluff top at the end of my walk for one final appreciative look at the primal beauty of this beach, I would have missed this rare moment of spectacular behavior...

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...Each of us has certain nostalgic scents that conjure up past images. As we are the sum of our experiences, scent memories make powerful contributions to life’s meaning. A pleasure picture that flashes into my mind, triggered by a past smell adds to my happiness. The scent inspired pictures that dredge up bad memories, I try to tape over with a new and better version. For many years, I hated the smell of apple juice because it brought back the unpleasantness of drinking an anti-nausea drug in apple juice when I was going through chemotherapy for cancer. Little by little I have replaced the dreaded apple smell image with the idea of a crisp, fresh apple as a healthy food, one that is good for my body. I still don’t relish apple juice, but I have learned to drink it without bad memories.

Smells that recall pleasurable events or those I want to remember because they were special in some way, I easily retain. I don’t want my scent memories to fade away and escape my perception. I want them to seep into my soul and give me comfort...

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Scents

Totems

...The day begins with a thin shelf of gray clouds hanging over a noisy metallic sea. To the south, scattered patches of darker sky cast deep purple shadows onto the water below. A stiff breeze from the northwest flattens my light windbreaker against my back and ruffles my hair. I watch a red and white styrofoam lobster float bounce up and down against the rocks at Pelican Point as the incoming tide struggles to free it from the braided nylon rope and wire trap wedged between two large boulders. Long strands of brown kelp half buried in the sand twist around the yellow rope, anchoring it even more securely among the rocks. I wonder if I can get close enough to cut its bindings and carry the red and white cylinder home with me as a prized addition to the lobster floats I’ve collected over the years.

For as long as I’ve been coming to this beach, every stray float I’ve found cast upon the sand has ended up in my yard. “Why?” I ask myself. “What is there about finding something on the beach that compels me to carry it home?” I certainly have no good use for a multitude of stray lobster buoys. Their bright paint box colors of purple, yellow, orange, red and green attract me. But surely their appeal is more than just color. Many were so difficult to separate from the long lines securing them to their wire traps that I now carry a small jackknife in my beachwalk pack. I use it primarily to rescue birds caught in loops of fishing line, but it also comes in handy to sever the thick nylon rope attached to a beached lobster float. It takes firm pressure and a long time to saw through each sturdy strand of braided nylon and I usually end up with blisters from my effort. Sometimes I’m lucky and can untie the knots, and sometimes I have to give up and leave the float in its bed of sand and seaweed. I realize the float caught in the rocks today is one of those teasers, so I leave it to continue its dance with the surf...

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...A cold, hard winter rain drenches the land and sea alike and deters me from my early morning beachwalk. As I look out my water-spotted window, I see two doves huddled in the low branches of an Acacia tree waiting out the storm. As soon as it stops raining, I know they will check the bird feeder on the windward side of my house for sunflower seeds and the grains they gobble up so quickly. I can also see a few Bushtits sheltered under the leafy branches of the same tree and I think of how often I’ve wondered where birds go when it rains. Now I have an answer for birds I see in my yard, but I still wonder about shorebirds. Where do sea gulls, pelicans, cormorants, grebes and all those little sandpipers go when winds howl and rain pelts down with fierce force? An Audubon Society guide once told me they go out to sea and ride the waves.

Sheets of rain continue to pound the ground and gusty winds drive across the garden pushing over deck chairs and the sun umbrella. The ocean looks steely-gray with angry, white capped waves roiling towards shore. Are there really flocks of shorebirds out there waiting for an end to the bad weather? During a lull in the storm’s intensity, three pelicans and a gray gull fly past my window, and again, I wonder, where have they come from and where are they going?...

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Storm Birds