Rising Tide

For some reason I awoke this morning feeling a little unsettled.  Perhaps it was because Martha had asked me last night, "How does it feel to be turning 68?"  I admitted to her that now I could no longer comfortably say that I was in my "mid 60s;" I will soon be in my "late 60s."  It's a number that surprises me when I hear it, and I do feel pretty good about where I am - healthy, struggling more or less successfully for Peace and Plenty, even planning to run a half marathon in less than two weeks -
but the rising tide of years makes us all think about our mortality.

"Make the most of your brief time on Earth," Garrison Keillor recently wrote in the Washington Post.  "Life is good if you have your health and not all bad even if you don’t, which is sometimes forgotten in an election year."  The best therapy for feeling "unsettled" (other than going for a run) is to take a walk on the beach.

The tide was rising and the sky was overcast, and there were only a few others out walking.  I heard the motor of this shrimp trawler sailing back to port.

When the tide is low, there seems to be more shore life activity along the beach.  The beach is wide and flat, and each wave brings in something interesting.  For these sandpipers it was dinner.

I think these are called Least Sandpipers (Calidris minutilla) - and isn't that a wonderful name? - the smallest I have seen on my walks.  They mostly feed on very small insects, as well as the protein-filled slime, or "biofilm," that comes in on the ride.  Their little legs are a blur!  Martha remembers that her Daddy called them "Martha Jane Birds" because they reminded him of her skinny legs as a very young child running at a fantastic pace on the beach.

A little farther along, I came upon these larger shore birds, equipped with long, probing bills; they may be Greenshanks (Tringa nebularia), or possible Snipes (Gallinago stenura), according to my haphazard internet research.

 
I was surprised to learn many years ago, by the way, that there really are snipes; I had declined invitations to go on a Snipe Hunt more than once when I first moved to Western North Carolina more than 40 years ago.  These real snipes stalked their prey in a more measured way, watching carefully as each wave washed in; when the waves retreated, a dozen or so bubbling holes could be seen frantically disappearing in the sand as tiny invisible snails or insects tried to bury themselves away from that long bill.

 And these gulls are always present, usually standing still when they are not soaring overhead, watching for the small fish and insects they feed on; they stalk out of the way grudgingly, and I sometimes imagine they have a scowl and huffily hunched shoulders.

We have noticed that in colder weather, they will sometimes stand on one leg.  I learned that this is a way of staying warm:  "By standing on one leg, and pulling the other leg up against the warmth of its body, a bird can reduce by up to half, the amount of heat lost through its legs. In short, they stand on one leg to warm up a little bit."  Leg-warmers not needed today.  But I was surprised that he missed this delectable little snack a little farther along the beach.

As I came near the Fort Macon Picnic Area, I came upon this shore-creature, made skinny by his wet fur, running into the surf again and again and then returning happily to his owner to shake water and jump on him.  I snapped his picture and told the man, "That is a picture of a perfectly happy dog!" and he laughed.

It is a joy to watch dogs play at the beach; it must be like paradise for them, the constant waves coming in, the smells, and OHMYGOD THE BIRDS!!! as they give futile chase to seagulls and sandpipers with absolute abandon.

I found some interesting shells, too; it was a good time of day for that, the tide so low, gently washing in, depositing one treasure after another unbroken, as if in cupped hands.

And then suddenly I came upon the most perfect sand dollar we have found, not yet bleached white by the sun, a whole and intact newly-minted coin.

I carried it gingerly all the way back to the condo; it was so thin and fragile that I thought it might snap in two, like the many brittle halves and quarters we see more often - loose change rattling in the surf.

It was indeed therapeutic - it was settling for the unsettled part of me - to walk along this peaceful shore, watching the years and the tide rising relentlessly.  There is nothing a man can do to keep the moon from pulling the tides up and down.

"Moon, turn the tides,

Gently gently away." - Jimi Hendrix

A young woman who had driven a red Jeep Wrangler onto the beach was wandering slowly in the water, gazing down, doing the same thing as I was.  Perhaps it was she who wrote this in the sand nearby, commemorating a sisterly seashore reunion.

Next to it someone had written "I Love Henry 🖤"  But by the time I had returned it had been washed away, only the faint heart remaining, scrubbed away by waves laden with tiny shells.