Beach Day

After a nearly historic cold snap, the weather seems to want to make amends, with a spate of sunny, nearly 70-degree days. Today at lunch I decided to drive the ten minutes to the beach. My eyes, deadened by the glare of the computer screen taunting me with errant commas, superfluous capitalization, and subject/verb disagreement all morning, forgave me as the car crested the final bridge over the marsh and they saw the ocean open up before me.

The thermometer in my car said it was 66 by my office, but it had cooled down to 57 by the ocean. I looked around in my car for a jacket, but couldn’t find one. No matter—I was more concerned with keeping the loose sand out of my shoes, and it didn’t end up feeling too cold. The tide was out, and I saw lots of strange bubbly things on the sand. I went closer and saw they were clams, their bright pink flesh peeking out of the open shells. I couldn’t tell if they were dead or alive, if they’d been stranded by the tide or if they enjoyed getting some fresh air, but as I walked by, one snapped itself shut. I was surprised it could move so fast!

This beach tends to not have intact shells by the time they make it to shore, but I found some really lovely snail shells and shell pieces which I plan to incorporate in some new terrariums on etsy. I really enjoy examining the sea creatures that wash up on the shore—it may seem macabre, but it’s really better than any aquarium to me, because it’s nature being acted out in front of me. It’s always interesting to see what’s there, because they usually wash up in large numbers, and it always makes me wonder what’s going on in the ocean. Today there were lots of starfish. The ones closest to the water were still soft, and I tossed some back, pretending their grey-blue bodies were soft because they still had some life in them and not just because they were wet. I saw a crab I’d never seen before, a little pot-bellied spotted thing that was impossibly cute. There were some really lovely pink sea urchins, which I’d never seen on the beach before. I saw the shell of a huge horseshoe crab, its body picked clean by seabirds.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera for any of this stuff, but awhile back, I took Lainey to the beach and there were dozens and dozens of horseshoe crabs washed up. I took this picture then:

Although I am impatient for glorious 80-degree weather, I am also dreading the onset of spring, as I know the area will be congested by tourists once more. It will be a small miracle to snag a parking space on the street across from the beach, rather than having my choice of the empty stretch of parking spaces yawning before me, the parking meters bagged in heavy green material for the season.