Solstice

I went to the beach on the solstice.

It was beautiful.

When I was picking my way through the brush path, I got to the top and came down, this is what I saw. It immediately reminded me of Anne of Green Gables.

I was talking to a friend of mine who lives on the east coast, and shot over a few pictures. He commented that it now seemed odd to him to see the sun set over the water...as for him, when at the beach, the beautiful thing is to see the sun rising. I had never even thought about that before. Sunsets on the beach just seem so natural.

It occurred to me that almost my whole life, I have had easy access to seeing the sun set over the water. You can see the sun set on the water from the front porch of the house I grew up in. I have lived within a few miles of water for most of my life after leaving home, and so I could easily make the effort to see the sun set over the water if I wanted to. There's nothing like it. (Now, I'm kind of curious to see what the sunrise over water looks like...but chances are I won't be curious enough to actually get up in time to see the black to grey to pink to yellow of the dawn. At least, I assume the sunrise pinks. (Horrors, what if there is no pink?!?!)

I feel the urge to note that these have not been photo-shopped at all, seeing as how I don't have the software, because, as we have mentioned before, I am a little too much like Scrooge for the Bob Cratchets in my life.

Here I am, looking at the beach, sitting on my newly-finished quilt. Now it has sand all over in it. I suppose it was a good maiden voyage. Now I won't worry about whatever else gets on it in the future because I took it out, and it survived the Sandy Beach test. So bring it on! Many more adventures will be had on this quilt, I'm sure.

My favorite part of the night was talking to my friend Peeks. It was her birthday party, and her car, like many others, got stuck in the sand. (Why they ever decided to drive on the beach, I will never be quite sure, but there were at least 20 cars on the sand. It doesn't seem very environmentally friendly to either the beach or the cars, but hey, whatever...) In fact, while we were walking toward the party, we saw a car drive by and splash itself in the water....seemingly just for the fun of it. My car and salt water don't really like each other, but I guess this is like the cat that likes to go swimming.

We were talking about silly boy stuff and then I said, "there's no need to sully this sunset with such nonsense" and she just looked at me and proclaimed that I had been speaking Shakespearean not-sonnets to her and laughed. As we watched, the sky turned an almost steel blue, and a line of six pelicans came and were swooping up and down over the water in a delicate, almost mathematical curve. Up and down, never diving...skimming close to the water, rising about ten feet above it. Pelicans are big birds. Even the brown ones (which I'm pretty sure these were), that are the smallest of all pelicans, have a wingspan averaging seven feet. It was a treat to see them, wings unfurled, undulating up and down on the air currents I could feel, but couldn't see.

Aside: I think I'd have to be very trusting to be a bird. After all, you're being kept aloft by something that you assume will keep going, that you can't see, that's unpredictable, that you have zero control over. So while you're learning to fly, trust is a big deal. It's not like you can hold it against your mommy bird that the doldrums suddenly decided to appear and that you plummeted headfirst tens of feet toward a flat hard surface before wildly squawking and somehow finding purchase (or not, with my luck).

The moon was so bright and beautiful. The stars were small and, though visible, seemed far away because of all the light. It was gorgeous...no flashlights required. :) Though with my little point-and-shoot you can't see the details of the moon, they were there...it wasn't just a ball of reflected light upon which no life can be sustained. It was an embellishment to good times with good friends.