waves and gray-white beach
salt, monotonous, senseless
subtler than poems

The attractions, fascinations there are in sea and shore!

How one dwells on their simplicity, even vacuity!

What is it in us, arous’d by those indirections and directions?

That spread of waves and gray-white beach, salt, monotonous, senseless —

such an entire absence of art, books, talk, elegance —

so indescribably comforting, even this winter day —

grim, yet so delicate-looking, so spiritual — striking emotional, impalpable depths, subtler than all the poems, paintings, music, I have ever read, seen, heard.

(Yet let me be fair, perhaps it is because I have read those poems and heard that music.)

From A Winter Day on the Sea-beach by Walt Whitman as published in Complete prose works: Specimen days and Collect, November Boughs and Good Bye My Fancy by Walt Whitman (D. Appleton and Co: New York and London, 1910).

my life is a stroll
upon beach, as near ocean’s
edge as I can go

My life is like a stroll upon the beach,
As near the ocean’s edge as I can go;
My tardy steps its waves sometimes o’erreach,
Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.

My sole employment is, and scrupulous care,
To place my gains beyond the reach of tides,—
Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare,
Which Ocean kindly to my hand confides.

I have but few companions on the shore:
They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea;
Yet oft I think the ocean they’ve sailed o’er
Is deeper known upon the strand to me.

The middle sea contains no crimson dulse,
Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view;
Along the shore my hand is on its pulse,
And I converse with many a shipwrecked crew.

The Fisher’s Boy by Henry Thoreau as published in Poems of nature )Houghton, Mifflin & Co.: Boston , 1895).

In the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, Clarence the Angel famously disproves the existence of George Bailey by listing all the forms of identification George no longer has.

Clarence says, “There is no George Bailey. You have no papers, no cards, no driver’s license, no 4-F card, no insurance policy… No Zuzu’s petals.”

I wonder what do we accomplish even when we carry those papers?

Our lives may be a rock dropped into a small pool (or a large one) where ripples on the surface have impact beyond out knowing.

But for ourselves?

I stroll the beach whenever I can.

As near the ocean’s shore I can go.

My tardy steps its waves sometimes overreach.

Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.

I will leave a trail of footprints to show where my feet have been.

But in a couple of hours, the tide comes and all evidence of me is erased.

So Mr. Thoreau warns to place your gains beyond the reach of the tides.

Along the shore, my hand is on the pulse.

Place your gains beyond the reach of the tides.

Keep Zuzu’s petals in your pocket.

It’s a wonderful life.

Christmas Eve Postcard:
having a wonderful time here
do not miss the snow

There was a time when I embraced the cold and the snow.

Grew up loving sledding and snurfing (snow boards before they became snow boards) and tobogganing.

Snow forts and snow ball fights.

Would stay out sledding on Crestview School hill until my hands were numb and when we got inside I would run the bathroom sink full of hot water and plunge my hands in to warm up.

No matter how many times I was told that didn’t work or that it made my fingers hurt worse, I couldn’t help myself.

As far as my fingers go, in winter, I picture poor Bob Cratchit in his scarf and coat, trying to warm his hands from the single candle that lit his desk.

Never got into cross country skiing but I enjoyed going out to Hoffmaster State Park and WALKING the cross country ski trails and thinking I was a Jeremiah Johnson type lost in the woods in winter. (Though there was that time I stayed too late and it got dark and got lost in the woods. I knew that Lake Michigan was out there and if I could get to the beach, I could find the walkway back to the parking lot. I made it but Jack London’s To Build a Fire was playing my mind).

Don’t get me wrong.

I get it.

But down here I was walking the beach in the sunshine.

Some kids (most likely from Wisconsin) were beach boarding.

I wasn’t getting out of my car and stepping into 4 inches of slush that went over my shoes and soaked my socks.

I wasn’t scrapping my windows.

I wasn’t worrying if my car would slide through the stop sign.

I wasn’t shoveling snow.

I wasn’t worried if I had gas for the snowblower.

I wasn’t worried that the pipes might freeze.

I wasn’t … cold.

I thought about how long I spent in Michigan winters.

50 of them I lived through.

I think that’s long enough.

Sometimes, I still don’t feel like I have thawed out.

Like I tell folks, Stalin would send people to Siberia … to punish them.

Anyway, Merry Christmas Eve 2025.

I am down here in the Low Country.

Having a wonderful time.

Do not miss the snow.