Ten from the Tide Pool

On Sunday morning, low tide was at 6:05 a.m., and, improbably, promised to be -.8 feet below sea level, nearly four feet lower than the late afternoon low tide the previous day. When we arose at 5:30 to prepare, the sky offered only the barest hint of a sunrise. Not enough to arouse the birds, but sufficient to allow hope. By the time we hit the beach, the pre-dawn light made flashlights unnecessary.



The green anemones were the first thing we all noticed. Some were 3-4 inches across when open, and there were spots where they piled in on top of each other. There were also smaller orange anemones. These were the size of quarters and half-dollars, and blended more with the rocks. The larger ones struck me as a bizarre life form. When I saw them grouped in a thick circular pattern, they seemed to say, "Take me to your leader."









The small white barnacles were very much alive. If you put your ear alongside where they massed on the rocks, they hissed and popped like an alien shortwave receiving signals from outer space. There were also thick patches of black mussel-like shells that were about the size of a small child's fingernail. Every once in a while, you'd come across a fat purple sea star. This one was at least six inches across.





As the sun came up over the horizon, two things occurred. The first was the turning of the tide. As the water came rushing back in, slowly at first, but then with real conviction, many small fish became stranded on the sand, where they patiently awaited water or death. There being obvious threats about, the girls and I went into rescue mode, flipping them back into the ocean as we could. There was a cosmic ridiculousness to my task, and I knew it. Somehow, though, it felt familiar.





The morning sun, when unobscured by clouds, bathed the area in a gorgeous golden light and made Twin A glow as if she were holy.

Nine on the Beach

Today I realized that photography is a lot like writing in that one must cull ruthlessly. I took 330 photos over a few hours time at Kalaloch Beach in the Olympic National Forest, and then narrowed them to what felt like the best. When I was done, there were nine. I put them together in a little two-minute slide show thing, and, in the spirit of less is more, cut a guitar solo out of an eight minute live version of the Dead's "Loser." Enjoy.

Pearl Moskowitz' Last Stand

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifIt's the end of August and we're off to our annual family pilgrimage to Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula. This year we're going to mix things up and spend a few days at Kalaloch as well.

Nearly everyone else in the world has checked out through Memorial Day weekend as well. I'm way too obsessive about this blog to abandon it altogether, but I have a plan, which occurred to me about ten minutes ago. For the next week, you may look forward to a series of postings of no consequence.

So, if you're looking for another diatribe regarding the Satanic essence of Phil Mangano, or my latest take on the dark slimy underbelly of ten year plans to end homelessness, you'll have to wait. While I might surprise myself and have a thoughtful moment, the odds, frankly, are against it.

So, for my first posting of no consequence, I thought I'd publish this beautiful watercolor from Pearl Moskowitz's Last Stand, which our friend Alison brought as a gift for Kay and Mica when she came visiting last night. Below is a gratuitously adorable photo of the girls, as Alison reads to them from Babar. Alison didn't bring Babar, which tends to reinforce colonialist attitudes and almost always ends with someone getting a medal. No. Alison brought them an out of print children's story about an activist Jewish mom who saves a tree from developers by engaging the enemy with kugel. She picks this book up used whenever she sees it to eventually give away.

It's an awesome kids book.

I do that too. Here's my list of books I buy used whenever I see them to give away to the next person I deem to be both worthy and in need: Lawrence Boadt's Reading the Old Testament study guide, Carolyn Forche's Against Forgetting anthology of war poetry; and Elliot Liebow's brilliant and moving ethnography of homeless women Tell Them Who I Am. I have also been known to do this with John Hersey's The Wall and Ignazio Silone's Bread and Wine, two very different fictionalizations of underground resistance to fascism during World War II that everyone on the planet should really read sometime. More embarrassingly, I also give away copies of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.