pack the car, lunch, kids
towels, toys, off to the beach
tide took beach away

We went out to the beach but having lived along the coast now for a couple of years, we checked the tide chart.

Bad news.

High tide was predicted for 2pm.

We left about 10 o’ clock and figured we could get a place easily on the great expanse of beach and it would take hours at least until the tide took the beach away.

That worked, so far as it worked.

We got a nice spot but with strong on shore breeze and the upcoming June Solstice, we got a reminder of why all the tide charts say … the information is only a predicition.

By noon the water was up to our beach chairs and we moved back.

We moved back again.

As with all really high tides, the water was filled with reeds from the salt marshes behind the barrier island.

It wasn’t just the water that was moving in the with the tide, it was foot high wall of these reeds.

With an hour and a half to go to high tide, everyone on the beach had been pushed back into one thin ribbon of sand along the water front.

That ribbon of sand wasn’t going to last long.

There was no more back beach left to move back to.

It would be hours before any amount of beach was be available for habitation.

We gave in, packed up and left.

Making our way off the beach to the raised wooden pathway to the parking we passed family after family.

Families that were prepared for a day at the beach.

Families with beach carts packed with toys, chairs, umbrellas and food.

Families with countless eager young faces carrying boogie boards and pails and plastic shovels.

Mom’s with backpacks for sunblock and snacks.

Dad’s pulling the carts and leading the way to the beach.

Everyone with a face of expectation.

Faces of expectation and excitement.

Faces that had lasted through the long drive to the coast from deep inside the midwest.

Faces that had through the check in process.

Faces that had ears that had heard, “Almost there! Can you feel the sand in your toes? Can you smell the salt.”

We didn’t tell them.

We couldn’t tell them.

They would have to find out for themselves.

They were looking forward to a day at the beach.

They had been looking forward to a day a the beach since they had left home.

They had been looking forward to a day at the beach since Dad had announced he had booked their vacation.

The sun was out,

The weather was hot.

But …

But the tide …

The tide had taken the beach away.

misty gray morning
shadows through glass and darkly
glasses need cleaning

I have been wearing glasses since about 1969.

I do not expect my glasses to provide perfect vision.

Though I am always shocked and a little sad when I look at things like my hand or read without my glass (with a kindle 3 inches from my nose) at how CLEAR everything is.

Today I have what is known as ‘progressive’ bifocal glasses.

What that means is when I put my glasses on, I have to change the angle of my head to my reading surface until I have a level of focus that allows me to recognize text at a point that I can read it.

I find that this angle changes through out the day if not by the hour or even by the minute.

It is like my vision is in a constant state of flux to reach optimum angle and distance for reading comfort.

This has been going on so long that I no longer even notice that I am doing this.

It is all by second nature.

Then there are those mornings.

Gray mornings.

Misty gray mornings.

The world is a dark, murky place of shadows.

And I take my glasses off and look at them to find that both inside and outside surfaces of the lenses are coated with crud.

Sure this has been going on forever as well but moving to the Atlantic Coast has raised the level of the crud.

I have no hard data to back this up but it seems to me that the salt air or the salt in the air adds a layer of sticky, slimy greasiness to the crud.

Not only is this salty slime part of the problem but it is also a dust magnet that makes it all that much worse.

Diabolically this salty slime is also ‘wiping resistant’.

The traditional ‘breathing on the glass’ and wiping with a cotton shirt tail only manages to smear the crud around leaving gucky finger prints and rainbows of prismatic crud.

Using sprays and fancy wipes don’t seem to help much.

The tried and true soaping under running water and then drying with a clean cloth is about the best but it is a lot of work.

Once clean, I am still along the coast and the salt air goes right back to work.

It isn’t long until once again, it is a gray misty morning and I am seeing shadows through a glass and darkly.

natural world is
engaging and innocent
as it ever was

Adapted from:

If the vexatious world of people were the whole world, I would not enjoy it at all.

But it is only a small, though noisy, part of the whole; and I find the natural world as engaging and as innocent as it ever was.

When I get sick of what men do, I have only to walk a few steps in another direction to see what spiders do.

Or what the weather does.

This sustains me very well indeed and I have no complaints.

Letter to Carrie A. Wilson, May 1, 1951; Letters of E. B. White, Rev. Ed., p. 306.