With
the annoying screech of arctic terns overhead, I woke up with dewy, soggy,
unruly hair. Looking out toward the beach
I watched a seagull snatch a bright red crab the size of a hamburger patty from
the shallow water. The bird struggled
with the snapping pincers until the crimson creature’s soft underside was
exposed, and the feast began. I lingered
in my sleeping bag for nearly an hour, watching the geoducks (say gooey-ducks) perform a synchronized water
fountain show while a heron glided silently in for a delicate landing in the
shallows, and an eagle only slightly less gracefully perched on the lone piling
for a good view of the passing salmon.
I
had camped out on this deck a gazillion times, but not recently. I spent my childhood summers this way, watching
and exploring the wonders of Puget Sound.
Now middle-aged, I haven’t yet grown tired of beach-combing and the joys
of the smallest discoveries.
I’m still not
quite sure why one of my favorite things is watching for sea lions. Spottings are occasional at best and we can
only see what emerges above water - usually a round, shiny head with a big
smile (at least that is how I see it) cruising along, and then the flash of the
smooth back and tail as she dives into the deep. We may see her reappear several hundred yards
away, chuckling, if we’re lucky. Some
might say it’s as exciting as watching paint dry. I have always found the thought of such a
glorious mammal enjoying its life in the wild, just yards from where I sit, to
be completely exciting.
In
recent days I have shed plenty of tears in my beers over the impending loss of
my childhood home. Our Mom and Dad have
grown weary of maintaining the half acre of waterfront on Commencement Bay that
we have called home for many-a-decade.
It is time for my folks to relax and enjoy their golden years in a well
maintained condo instead of attending to the thousand-and-one nagging chores
that come with owning a large piece of property and an old, creaky, but unbelievably
charming, house on the beach.
Having
just returned from a couple of days camping on the deck at that rocky beach,
packing up boxes of books and things that haven’t been touched by a human hand
for years, I’m coming to some sort of peace with this move that my heart has
been having a hard time accepting. At
first the flood of memories felt like pain, the pain of loss. But then I began to think about who I am
now.
I
am an observant person who won’t pass a struggling earthworm on the pavement
without stopping to toss it into the cool grass. When I hear birds making a fuss, I’m curious
to find out what might be causing the panic so I stop to watch. My running partner often becomes annoyed when
our rhythmic pace slows to a stutter simply so I can check out the beaver
nibblings on the pond-side trees, or to follow the bunny trail, just to see
where it goes. We have discovered an
osprey’s nest by following our ears, and watched an owl family calling to each other
across the creek in the middle of the day.
With all of the reflecting on my childhood in recent weeks, compared to the life I live now, I have
decided that the slightly nutty person that I am today is in large part a product
of my beachside upbringing. All of the
memories of childhood that I have suddenly felt so desperate to hold onto will
not be lost. The countless memories are most
definitely the building blocks of who I am.
All of us are a product of our past.
Whether you spent your childhood nurturing younger siblings or competing
at a high level in sports, these experiences become part of who we are. I learned to love nature from watching it
every day from my breakfast table.
Feeding the shore crabs bologna from my sandwich at lunch and silently
observing barnacles grabbing microscopic food with their feet as the tide washed
over them taught me that even the tiniest things can be fascinating, and that nature
is important.
It’s time to put these
memories in my pocket, close to my heart, and move on. Now I’m going to think about how I’m raising
my own children. What kind of memories
are we creating together? Will these
become the building blocks of who they become as adults? It all matters.
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