The Beachcomber Amble

The Beachcomber Amble

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What is it about a beach that brings out the kid in us? Grownups build sand castles and play paddle ball, lie still for hours in the sun, live outside of time.

Purposeful striders lose their momentum. They don’t so much walk as amble. They take on the investigatory zeal of a two-year-old examining each stray stick and leaf.

As the tide recedes they stroll along the beach, picking up clam, coquina and cockle shells. They study them, pocket them or put them in a bag.

If a storm has just moved through, they might find intact sand dollars, lovely pieces of ephemera that somehow last through time and tides.

Then again, they may find nothing much at all, just a few shells that are precious because of the walks they took to find them.

The Vacation Effect

The Vacation Effect

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One of my favorite scenes in the movie “A Thousand Clowns” happens when Murray Burns is told he must get back to reality. “I’ll only go as a tourist,” he replies.

As I reenter my real life, I replay that scene, re-embrace that motto.

I look at the parking garage in Vienna, see not the cars but the stripes of light that make a pattern on the floor.

It’s not a bad way to live, as a real-life tourist, seeing the world with fresh eyes. It doesn’t last long, this “vacation effect.” But I’ll take it while I can get it.

Siesta Sunset

Siesta Sunset

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For Atlantic beaches I rise early to catch the sunrise. But for Gulf beaches, there’s no need to join the dawn patrol. The big show is in the evening.

About 7:45 or 8:00 p.m., there’s a little rush hour here of folks walking to the strand, some with drinks in hand, all ready to watch the big orb drop slowly into the surf.

Most carry their phones, others have cameras. My first night here I happened upon a sunset beach wedding. Though I usually like to people-watch, for Siesta Key sunsets I keep my eyes trained on the sky. Most people do.

What is it about elemental pleasures that so soothe and satisfy? I’m not sure. But I do know that vacations awaken our ability to seek them out and be part of them again.

The Sand

The Sand

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It’s the first beach day I’ve woken up to rain, so instead of rushing off on an early morning jaunt I’m taking a lazier approach to the day. I’m thinking about the walks I’ve taken here this year and the lusciousness of the sand on this beach.

And it is marvelous. More like flour or confectioners sugar, powdery and fine and so, so white. It never burns the feet. 
To run my toes through it, or my hands when I’m lying face down (well slathered with number 50 sunscreen, of course) is to know the soul of summer.

I found a little brochure written by the Chamber of Commerce extolling the local sand. It’s formed almost entirely of quartz, apparently, with very little shell matter, which accounts for its fine-sifted character. 
All I know is that it’s soft and warm and enticing. Kind of like a beach vacation.
Horizontal Tree

Horizontal Tree

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Trees are lovely and I enjoy writing about them. But they have a design deficit when it comes to blog post illustration. They are, for the most part, relentlessly vertical.

This is, of course, one of their chief attributes.  They stand up straight and tall. They aim themselves heavenward and take our thoughts with them.

But in a blog layout such as this, a horizontal picture suits better than a vertical one. Enter the banyan, a tree that is born of air, that grows not from the ground but from another banyan. A tree that grows not just up but out.

Banyans provide cool gathering places. Whole villages can assemble under their canopies. One of the largest spans eight acres!

And then, there is the banyan’s pictorial properties. When you need a horizontal tree, the banyan fits the bill. It is not just shade but shelter.

(Photo: Wikimedia)

Indolence

Indolence

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The afternoon was too warm for a walk, but I pressed on anyway. By the time I’d finished, thunder was rumbling in the distance.

The weather here follows its own tropical rhythm. Bright blue mornings and dark blue afternoons. It’s the perfect excuse for indolence.

There’s only so much you can do when it’s this hot. And there’s only so much you can do when rain is pounding the beach and wind is bending the palms.

And so, you do very little. Or try to.

It works pretty well most of the time.

(This lazy canal says it all.)

The Bismarckia

The Bismarckia

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I only learned its name today, this plant that I’ve seen for the last four years I’ve been coming to this Gulf Coast beach town.

It’s a palm that stood out for its blue-gray color, the hue of Nordic seas, a subtle note among the tropical oranges and yellows.

At first it was little more than a tall frond, a shrub. But as the years  have passed it has added to its heft and hue and now stands  quite proudly, as befits its rather hefty name.

I looked it up online. Named for the first chancellor of the German Empire Otto von Bismarck and native only to Madagascar (an odd combination!), this plant is grown throughout the tropics and subtropics.

Which is why I’ve found it here in subtropical Florida, where a brief rain shower drove me inside to finish the post.

Bird Feet

Bird Feet

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Here at the beach the snowy plovers have hatched but are not yet able to fly. They skitter around on the sand like so many tiny tumbleweeds. A sign warns beachcombers to beware. They camouflage themselves so well that it would be easy to step on them.

I spotted a couple of these cuties on a beach walk. A small crowd had gathered to watch the newly hatched chicks. Seeing them at their crazy ballet got me thinking about bird feet in general.

Though it’s a bird’s wings not its feet that most singularly propels it, shore birds are an exception — from gulls hopping up to beg for sandwich scraps to sandpipers running through the surf.

This morning I spied a tern daintily dipping its webbed toe in a tidal pool. I saw a yellow-footed snowy egret with a long white mane like an aging conductor. And I saw a pelican land nose first in the water, its feet flapping behind.

Bird feet were central in all of these tableaux. And I’ll think about them long after the beach walk is over.

(A bird on the wing instead of on foot.)

Longer Than Planned

Longer Than Planned

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Yesterday’s walk was a lunchtime getaway, and a longer one than planned. I took off down 23rd Street to Arlington Ridge Road, a thoroughfare I’d read about and wanted to explore. It is indeed a ridge road, and getting to it was a bit of a hike.

But it was winding and green and as I glanced up the hills at the rambling mansions, I thought about the history of it all, going all the way back to the Custis family.

As my thoughts were wandering, my feet were flying, and before I knew it I was at Four Mile Run, a full mile or more away from where I meant to end up.

It was 90+ degrees, my feet were tired and my face was flushed, but there was nothing to do but push on in that way that’s all too familiar, the way known to all walkers who’ve been so enthralled going in one direction that they fail to think about how long it will take them to get back.

Twenty minutes later, I was glad to see the Crystal City high rises swing into view. And the super-chilled office air was for once just right.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Old School

Old School

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Another morning walk, this time noticing who has those little plastic-wrapped packages at the end of their driveways every morning. Neighbors on either side and across the street. Not the quorum it used to be but a small and mighty band.

It’s our daily delivery of dead tree pulp, finely ground and rolled and imprinted with the latest follies of humankind.

Yes, we could scan the news on our iPads, iPhones or laptops. We could flip on the car radio and hear about the scandals and theories in the secure bubble of our automobiles. We could curl up in an easy chair with a cup of milky sweet Earl Gray and watch CNN. Or we could get the news (or what algorithms have deigned would delight us) from a Facebook feed.

On the other hand … we could unwrap the newspaper from its protective sheath, take it on the bus with us. We could dive into it as if into a cool, slow-moving stream. Could let the information and opinions it offers take us in directions we never could have imagined. Could wind up informed and inspired and enraged and smeared with ink.

But that’s only if we’re old school. Which so few of us are anymore. Hard copy? Dead trees? You betcha. I’m old school and proud. You’ll have to pry my print paper out of my cold, dead hands.

(Jon S. Creative Commons, from WNPR)