A morning walk

The sea is placid today.  Pacific.  Passive.  Reflecting sky and hills, still green.  Amplifying gull cries; highlighting wingtips with sparkle and spray.  Retreating in a long exhale of tide.

Joining A Spirit of Simplicity for Tuesday Afternoons

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A Weekend Away

These Northwest beaches are nothing like the ones I knew when I was young.  My family would drive down down down the mountains to scorch our feet on the blistering hot sand and frolic in the frothy waves.

Here there are more rocks than sand and the water is cold enough to freeze the breath inside you.  Even so, the sea is seductive and I am very happy to don windbreaker and rubber boots for a walk on the beach.

G and I did lots of beach walking this weekend.  We drove just far enough up the west coast to lose cell coverage and feel distant from the every day.  The shapes of the trees suggest that a bracing wind is the norm here.

But we escaped the worst of it by sitting right down on the rocky beach.

Selfie time.

The waves blow in then roll the rocks around on the inhale.  My favorite beach sound.

This big guy flapped past, harried by some seagulls.  Was he stalking their nest?  Stealing their fish?  We stalked him back -- through three perches until the light and angles were right for portraiture.

A rope swing on the beach.  Oh yes!  It was an erratic ride between the bouncy tree branch and all that wind, but no one smashed into the tree trunk so it was fun.

Finally a cozy retreat.  Rustic but comfortable.  Close enough to the water for the waves to flood our dreams.

Cat Feet

The fog came in on little cat feet, just like in that poem that we all studied in middle school.  It came in while I was looking the other way, collecting clam shells and watching seagulls bob and fish on the inside of the breakwater.   Early fall yellows reflected.

Then, a fog horn bellowed at my back.  It reverberated across the lagoon, stirring up the gulls with its forceful melancholy.  Other ships in the straight answered in their own voices, and the first cottony wisps of mist floated overhead.

I crossed the breakwater and looked out to sea.  There was nothing -- only fog and the lapping tide.  

The fog came

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg