Favorite Things: Washed Up On The Sand

I love the beach.  Not warm beaches.  Not sunny beaches full of bikinis and tropical drinks and "blond" people and big boobs and muscles all teaming with the itch to be seen mostly naked.

I love beaches that are rocky, cold, deserted, rainy, and severe.  I love Oregon beaches.  I love stretches of sand on which the ocean has thrown up various indigestible items such as: body parts (of sea creatures), jelly fish, strange kelp that looks like alien life forms, sand dollars (whether whole or broken), bits of shells, pebbles, agate, worn glass, and weathered soft satiny pieces of wood.

Having a digital camera, (particularly one that takes decent pictures), has amplified this pleasure, this little favorite thing exponentially.  In the past, before my little digital wonder lens, I would enjoy these bits of sea debris and then the memory of them would fade almost as soon as I returned home.  The tiny details.  Photographing them actually helps me enjoy them more in the moment as I focus in both literally and metaphorically, on the shiny sides of beach glass, or the spiny part of the crab's severed leg.  I look harder for the details now too.

What you see one afternoon will be gone the next.

Except for the rare beached dead seal or the tree sized piece of driftwood.

It's an ephemeral enjoyment that has become more enduring.

Revisiting this crab leg reminds me of the lovely light that washed over us at the end of our last beach excursion.  We were just leaving because this light, you understand, was the last hurrah.  Evening was coming fast on our backs.  We were on our way to have one pint in the beach pub ($$$) before returning home.

I saw it in the sand glowing like mad, like it still pulsed with life.  I thought about the crab that lost it; wondered if he lost it before or after dying?  Or was losing his leg a part of the dying?  It's alright that these questions will never be answered.  The color is a gorgeous mosaic of salmons, pinks, and reds.  It intrigues me that a severed crab leg could seem so beautiful while a human one would be so ugly and gruesome. 

I love the way the ocean grabs at the land, sucking it up hungrily, and then spits out the bones.