REPORT: December 25, 2010 - 9:30am

CHRISTMAS DAY

Winter on the beach is very special to me because it's mine. And T. OCEAN's too, yes. It is windy, desolate and spare. Visitor's do appear, but only for the requisite time to see the water, take a photo, then leave. The Happy Spider still keeps her perch in the mangroves. The gulls flock together by type - seagull, laughing gull. Tiny sandpipers stay busy digging morsels of food out of the sand. Plastic bits sticking up out of the windswept ground flap in the air. The shore break is groomed clean of all seaweed. Bits of driftwood are easier to find. The lifeguard reads. And the occasional winter swell bring small but welcomed waves to local surfers.

T. OCEAN brings his "snowboarders" - 2 plastic army men, 1 green, 1 beige, both found on the beach on previous visits - and drops himself onto the ground plunging the little men into the sand they perform outrageous flips and big airs. They have been transformed into a snowy terrain filled with mountains and blown up tracks. He's gone, escaping into his own winter wonderland.

I am waiting for the man-o-war to appear. With them ride glaucous - the strange blue slug with tiny appendages for arms that float upside down. The beach was sprinkled with them 2 years ago having washed up with the jellies. I haven't seen them since then. Still I do see pelicans hunting on the water, turkey vultures dancing in the sky, and large schools of fish skimming over the waves in the distance. Life rolling on.

With our human absence the beach sighs, takes a breath. Like letting the field go fallow she is allowed to rest only to return to sow and draw from again come spring. She is quiet. All is calm. All is bright.


Your,
Little Mama Sea Keeper

REPORT: December 2, 2010 - 4:45pm

Winter in South Florida brings out the scavengers. The lizards and butterflies hide out while raccoons and turkey buzzards appear.

Bundled up on the beach, T. OCEAN and I are the only ones around except the lifeguard waiting for the 5:00 hour -- standing on the stairs, sweatshirt on, gear packed, face in the sun. A couple appears to the north and photograph themselves in front of the ocean-as-backdrop, then leave. I pull my hood over my head and lie back, eyes to the sky. The expanse is so blue and without end it makes my head feel like it's being crushed, dizzy with space. Into the frame flying high is a turkey buzzard, then another. I look to my left, north -- a swirl of buzzards are heading south plowing through the pale blue space. They appear to be in random formation. A slow-moving tornado of birds, group after group of them migrating to where I haven't a clue. Black specks in the distance, black bird over-head then black spinning specks again.

By it's very (human) desolation the beach in winter can be for me at its most personal and real. Altogether too humanly real when lying down I can also now see at ground level the immensity of scraps of plastic sticking up out of the wind-swept sand. It's everywhere as far as the eye can see!! No space unclaimed in the evening raking light.

I look back up, and return my focus to the sky.


Your,
Little Mama Sea Keeper