What Else Should I Have Done?

It rained overnight - we could hear it beating against the sliding-glass doors through the night - and this morning dawned cool and clear, not a cloud in the sky.  The sun was already bright when I went out to the dune-top deck again.  There was a strong breeze out of the southeast, and birds were twittering in the brush next to the deck.

Martha decided to take a day off from running, but I knew I needed some long runs if I intended to run that half-marathon I was eyeing seven weeks from today.  So I prepared for the stiffer wind and the cooler temperatures with heavier shirt and gloves and headed north on Fort Macon Road.  With the wind at my back, it was so warm I considered taking off my shirt again, but when I turned around at Fort Macon and started heading south on the beach (still low tide), I was thankful for the heavier shirt and the gloves.

As I ran out to the Morehead City Channel, I stopped in my tracks as I saw a huge freighter, the Aurora, coming into the harbor.  This ship had crossed many miles and was finally finding rest here (as I was), accompanied by a tugboat and two small Coast Guard boats, as if a big draft horse was being led into the stable by tiny lapdogs.  It amazes me that a chunk of steel this huge can float on water and not sink to the bottom.

A man and his son were fishing there on the edge of the Channel.  "He's been begging me all week," the father said when I stopped to talk.  He said he was hoping to catch some drum or some sheepshead, and I wished him luck.  I always stop to talk to fishermen, asking in the morning what they hope to catch, and in the afternoon what the ocean has given up to them; it seems to be a time-honored thing to do, to simply throw a baited line in the waters and wait for a bite, and I honor all of these anglers out here on such a windy day.

 “Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing

that it is not fish they are after.” 

– Henry David Thoreau

Next I passed a young couple, man and wife, with what appeared to be twins, each of them carrying a tobogganed and bundled little tyke in a front facing baby carrier.  I wondered if these babies would always somehow hold in the back of their memories this cloudless, brisk day on the beach.  And then there was a young man throwing his dog a plastic yellow toy - this place must be heaven to a dog! - and he retrieved it, ran past him, and came to stand at my feet.  "Hey, buddy," I said, and tried to take it from him and throw it.  But he decided not to take up with a stranger and returned to his owner.

All along the way back, the ocean had thrown up piles of sea foam, which stood in little piles scattered along the edge of the water, little mounds of soapsuds quivering in the wind, and then suddenly sending out some smaller pieces of foam scurrying across my path like sandpipers.

At last I saw the familiar landmark of these colorful pastel-colored houses just up the road from our condo, like a box of crayons.

And then our condo building.  Six miles - not much of a "long run," but the best I could do today.  I stopped my watch and walked up to the dune-top deck where I had practiced my Tai Chi this very morning, stretched, and sat in the sun for awhile.

What a glorious waste of time, to spend all morning running on the beach, seeing what I could see, talking to fisherman, watching the sea foam scurry away before me in the wind.  It reminded me of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems (substitute sand for grass):

"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"