Beach notes 2010...

Beach notes 2010...

I walk the beach early every morning. I wake, have my first cup of tea and go to the beach, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by my oldest grandson, Matthew. Sunrise and sunset are for me the most precious times of the day at the beach. Quiet, empty spaces of endless sand and water move me towards the boundless God who set this wonderful creation in the midst of an unimaginably vast system of planets, stars, suns and moons.
My first drawing for the week is of my foot on the beach seen from above. I walk the beach with my feet passing through a universe of small shells. As I examine the remnants of the little lives once lived in these tiny hard houses, I feel like a god. Then I lift my eyes to the flat horizon, the ocean waves that never cease their dance of praise, the dolphins with graceful leaps of joy, the pelican squadrons flying low and in perfect formation, ghost crabs lifting cautious eyes above their sand hole homes scouting out the territory, and I remember it is God who has made us all.

Ours was the last generation to worship the sun. Doctors prescribed walks in strollers outdoors for babies because the sun was good for us. We worked in the fields until we were old copper penny brown pausing in the middle of the day for respite from the heat. Ladies of leisure (and teenagers) laid out in their backyards coated in a mixture of iodine and baby oil in search of the perfect tan. We rode on the ocean stretched out on reflective floats with our feet and hands dangling in the water, riding the waves, feeling the rhythm of the earth dance in the waves that flowed beneath us. The sun was our friend.
Now like so many other body parts of Mother Nature, the sun has been transformed into our enemy. We slather on concoctions of chemicals designed to hold the sun at bay, to protect us from its harmful rays only to discover some of the cures may be as dangerous as the UV rays.

We beach walkers come in at least three models. There are the straight up walkers who walk (or run) standing tall with arms pumping, looking to the right and left occasionally but focused on the goal that seems to lie straight ahead. They speak but rarely linger for conversation.
Others saunter, relaxed, dipping in and out of the waves as they walk. Sometimes they bend over to inspect a shell or stop and survey the horizon line. If someone passes by, a conversation may ensue. They take time to pet the dogs, smile at children and speak to those strangers who might be new friends.
And then there are the shell seekers who walk bent over, scuttling like crabs amidst the treasures cast up on the beach by the shell god. They pick up shells, inspect them, choose to keep or cast away, and return to the search looking up only to avoid collision with other shell seekers. Occasionally they stand straight to walk to the next patch of shells.
I confess I am a member in good standing with the saunterers and shell seekers. I have no goal or purpose when I walk the beach other than the discovery of beauty in whatever form I find it... moon shells with their iridescent spiral towards center, Duchess the English bulldog who loved me, little children building sand castles, dolphin bodies glistening grey, the turtle nest protected by a web of orange plastic, the moonlight path on the calm evening sea...a labyrinth of beauty with God at its center.

I am fascinated with shell fragments, the left overs when sun, sea and sand have carved the original shapes into new forms. My drawings are of pieces of sand dollars, old clam shells that are pitted and worn, small whelk shells that are shaved off on two sides, beach glass worn smooth, jagged edged scallop shells. I am a shell fragment, my soul worn down over the years to its core shape, open on all sides, jagged scars where wounds have healed imperfectly, pitted and scarred by my passage through life. And I am beautiful in my own time, a creation of God that is perfect in my own imperfection.
“God has made everything beautiful in its own time and has put eternity into our mind yet we cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Thanks be to God for the beaches in this world that remind us of endless love and boundless grace, perfection in imperfection.