Beach Walk

Maybe the boom of the surf registered on my sleeping brain the other night, because I dreamed about enormous waves. One of them rose so high it cast a shadow on the beach; another seemed to follow me as I ran from it and tried desperately to scramble up a sandy bluff.

I survived to awaken in this placid sunlit room, no trace of trauma except for a bloody lip, which was probably unrelated. But the sea seemed like the theme of the morning and we decided to go for a long walk at low tide.

It was a raucous day at the coast. Boats bobbed about, and surfers paddled out, and the hazy air smelled of brine and kelp.  We walked past a line of boulders that jutted up like backbones and stepped gingerly upon stretches of mossy rock that are usually underwater. I found two odd chunks of beach glass, one clear, another Coke-bottle green and rounded like a marble. We came upon an enormous petrified whalebone wedged in the sand, no doubt thousands of years old but only occasionally exposed, and we paused to marvel at it.

The sky and sea were shining like silver, and we continued our walk towards the point. Past Perko’s there were the remains of two sailboats that had run aground on the rocks last summer and were abandoned by their crews, supposedly part of a pirate convention; a peek inside one of them revealed rusting canned goods and a bawdy looking mud flap girl. (Shiver me timbers. I guess the rum was flowing.) On the way back, Jeanne found a perfectly good ladder and hoisted it over her shoulder to carry home.

The walk back seemed longer than the walk out. I was surprised how tired my legswere. Even Pi eventually slowed down.

When we got home, I stretched out on the couch and fell asleep promptly. I dreamed about enormous waves.