Wild horses.
"The beach," in my mind, has always been equivalent to corporate surf shops the size of jet hangars filled with g-strings and banana hammocks, coconut oil, and water wings. Homogenous gray wood condominiums block the ocean view. Gargantuan private beach homes are marvels of modern architecture designed to block out the sunrise that might otherwise reach the poor schmoes staying across the sand-strewn road in the trailor park.
Tourists are unfortunate this way. We see what we expect to see. And if we're in a rush, on a two day holiday, we don't see much at all.
Maybe it's not just tourists. Maybe, feeling so sure that we know what's out there, what's composing the world as we know it, we've quit looking. We've settled for the McDonald's, the Bert's Surf Shops, the strip malls because they're easier to appreciate than the complexity of nature, the unexpected, the chaotic, the time-consuming.
In one day, my whole idea of the beach changed. I don't even want to call it the "beach" anymore because that word has become sick with plastic connotations. Let's call it the seaside. The shore. Something more beautiful.
Our friends' home was in the thick of a maritime forest. The area was choked with cedars, live oaks, pines, sweet gums, and myrtle. Every inch of ground was shaded and mild and soft with grasses called St. Augustine and Bermuda and centipede and pennywort. The steeply sloping hill, tailored with wooden stairs and decks, slid down into a canal with shadowy waters where the boats waited. I can't describe it. The air was moist and gentle and sweet. Salt seasoned the breezes that came from the sound.
I've never fallen in love with a place before. I've loved places, but I've never fallen in love with one. The way that you fall in love with a person. I felt something say, "This is the place." The way I might say about a person, "This is the one."
We went out on a boat, floating through the canal past houses and children and cats and dogs, the same as you might find on a gravelly road in the mountains. We passed cardinals and bluejays and mallards and chickadees and doves. Fish slapped the surface of the water.
The canal dispensed us into the sound, broad and gray and misty. We passed under bridges and beside decks. We passed storefronts and restaurants and gas stations and hotels just like you might pass on a paved Main Street, but the street was wide and watery and hid traffic of another kind - flounders and dolphins and crabs. We passed a boat covered by a canvas where someone was rocked to sleep by waves. We passed islands where russet horses grazed on sea grass. Wild horses. Paces from picnickers.
I thought: some people do this every day. For some people, the world is filled with wild horses, leaping dolphins, sleep induced by waves, bonsai sculpted by the wind. I want to be one of those people. I want this world.
Tourists are unfortunate this way. We see what we expect to see. And if we're in a rush, on a two day holiday, we don't see much at all.
Maybe it's not just tourists. Maybe, feeling so sure that we know what's out there, what's composing the world as we know it, we've quit looking. We've settled for the McDonald's, the Bert's Surf Shops, the strip malls because they're easier to appreciate than the complexity of nature, the unexpected, the chaotic, the time-consuming.
In one day, my whole idea of the beach changed. I don't even want to call it the "beach" anymore because that word has become sick with plastic connotations. Let's call it the seaside. The shore. Something more beautiful.
Our friends' home was in the thick of a maritime forest. The area was choked with cedars, live oaks, pines, sweet gums, and myrtle. Every inch of ground was shaded and mild and soft with grasses called St. Augustine and Bermuda and centipede and pennywort. The steeply sloping hill, tailored with wooden stairs and decks, slid down into a canal with shadowy waters where the boats waited. I can't describe it. The air was moist and gentle and sweet. Salt seasoned the breezes that came from the sound.
I've never fallen in love with a place before. I've loved places, but I've never fallen in love with one. The way that you fall in love with a person. I felt something say, "This is the place." The way I might say about a person, "This is the one."
We went out on a boat, floating through the canal past houses and children and cats and dogs, the same as you might find on a gravelly road in the mountains. We passed cardinals and bluejays and mallards and chickadees and doves. Fish slapped the surface of the water.
The canal dispensed us into the sound, broad and gray and misty. We passed under bridges and beside decks. We passed storefronts and restaurants and gas stations and hotels just like you might pass on a paved Main Street, but the street was wide and watery and hid traffic of another kind - flounders and dolphins and crabs. We passed a boat covered by a canvas where someone was rocked to sleep by waves. We passed islands where russet horses grazed on sea grass. Wild horses. Paces from picnickers.
I thought: some people do this every day. For some people, the world is filled with wild horses, leaping dolphins, sleep induced by waves, bonsai sculpted by the wind. I want to be one of those people. I want this world.
posted by Autumn at 1:49 PM
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