Category: Everything Else

The deeper the solitude
the less the sense of loneliness,
and the nearer our friends.

-John Muir

Always a little sad, always a bit of relief to come home from the beach.

My favorite part is getting up early and walking the beach, just me and the birds, the fishermen, the lovebirds, and the like-minded amateur photographers. (Many’s the time I’ve come out of a reverie, taking pictures of a horseshoe crab or the like, and stood and stretched, only to realize that someone has been shooting pictures of me, a figure crouching by the water’s edge, with a similar intensity.)

I love this, this being alone, this communing with the sea, this unearthing of treasures churned up from the midst of the ocean and tossed onshore. And it’s true, after a morning of this self-imposed solitude, I am so much nicer to be around, and so much more appreciative of the people around me. Connected to the souls and the world around me.

Hopefully I can retain some of that peace while I deal with the laundry, go to the post office, and catch up with everything else I’ve put on hold for a week.

For now, I can enjoy this photo and its echoes of the rumble of the sea.

What do you do to slow down, take stock, to center your life?

Have a good weekend!

Helicopters dropping and retrieving people from the water
(this was some kind of drill)

Our brightest blazes of gladness
are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

-Samuel Johnson

Let’s hear it! What unexpected things have you encountered today?

Nature, obviously,
hadn’t counted on me showing up

and consequently treated me as
an unexpected and uninvited guest.

-Ivan Turgenev
“Diary of a Superfluous Man”

It’s funny how exasperated the birds at the beach get when I’m trying to take their picture! In their eyes I see their patience quickly failing: almost audible their thoughts:

Of all noxious animals…
the most noxious is the tourist.

-Francis Kilvert
“Selections from the Diary
of the Rev. Francis Kilvert”