At the Seashore

Abstract

It was a cool fall day. The sea chopped against the rocks in crisp rhythmic strokes, each time erupting in rolls of foam that furled down the shoreline like cascading dominoes. It was October 1, the first day dogs were allowed on the beach after the summer season. All the vacationers had gone back to their lives in cities to the south. We had the beach once more to ourselves–me and Daisy, my dog, who trotted on ahead. It was low tide. Tangles of seaweed–rippled rubbery gold kelp, knobby bladderwrack, fringed Irish moss, black skate egg cases, fancied by some as mermaid purses–were heaped on the shore like mounds of dark hair. I inspected the jetsam carefully as I walked along, looking for the odd treasure–a scoured lavender-green sea urchin shell with its perfectly symmetrical alignment of spine holes, a peach lobster claw with white teeth shaped like mine, a unique piece of driftwood. All stripped by the sea of pretense, worn down to their bare essence. One couldn’t edit out, however, the contaminating presence of human pollution– the odd bleached coke can caught in the tangle, a plastic spoon, a finished board with rusty nails, flaunting themselves like unwanted ads.