The beach is a place where a man can feel he’s the only soul in the world that’s real.

Pete Townsend

Driftwood…bleached bones. Tibia, fibia, a random scattering offered up by the sea, come to rest here. Finger bones, toe bones, skeletal remains of once living things. I love the shapes and sizes, no two are alike. This one is Moby Dick, mythical leviathan, gaping jaws, enormous unblinking eye, mottled and scarred skin, sounding then surfacing with a mighty blast through its blowhole only to disappear as quickly as it appeared. The whale swims across the lunar surface of this beach. Craters, peaks and valleys of sand stretch for miles in each direction, footprints of humans, gulls, horses, tiny birds, tinier mammals criss cross before me. These prints are a road map, they tell where to go, where I’ve been, where I hope to be. The tide will soon wash this map away, a clean slate for a different day, a new uncharted direction. We all have maps, inner paths plotted out for us, limited only by our imagination and the desire to follow the path of our choosing.

Wave after wave rolls to the beach, churning, roaring, sea foam flies back from each crest. These waves are my mantra; breathe in peace, breathe out hope. Again and again. The sun dips in and out of high clouds, its appearance and disappearance is a paint brush. Now the surface of the sea is cobalt blue, now it’s a deep olive green. The sun is an impressionist master playing with light and the infinite shades of color.

A quiet breeze animates the dune grass. Millions of slender, stiletto-sharp blades wave and shimmer. New green shoots emerge from dead brown ones, all dance together in the shifting light.

Coal-black Surf Scoters with conical white beaks bob up and down just beyond the breakers. The frigid sea, the roiling surf is their home. A small knot of tiny sanderlings appear to float as they scurry across the sand, their short, black beaks drill through the surface as each wave recedes. The outgoing tide will reveal a bounty for these diminutive shorebirds. With pure white heads and bodies, mottled grey wing bars, black tail feathers and tiny black legs, they are a study in contrast, a living Ansel Adams photograph. As one they take flight, knife point wings carry them swiftly down the beach to continue their foraging.

The shapes of the clouds are the stuff of my dreams. Today they are soft with ill-defined edges, cotton balls and blurred lines, broad sweeping brushstrokes, sky waves spraying sea mist. The sun is a white blur as it struggles to emerge from behind a grey section of the sky canvas. A clear blue sky is endless but today’s clouds add definition and depth. Now the sun breaks through. Like a lizard I give my body over to its life giving warmth. Renewal.