I measure my years by the lilacs

I measure my years by the lilacs. Some people measure time by moons, by Christmases past, birthdays or warm, lush summers. I measure the passage of time with the blooming of May’s lilacs. Each May the violet blooms burst forth with their sexy scents and their intricate flowers and I fall in love all over again. I’d have to say that they are my most favored flower. I imagine being on my death bed one day, and someone asking me for my heart’s pleasure because when you are dying people are so accommodating, unlike in real life. I would say “Bring me a giant bouquet of lilacs.” And then of course if it didn’t happen to be May, I would be out of luck, wouldn’t I? So does that mean I will have to make sure I die in May? This is the kind of sick scenario I think about. But each May when the lilacs bloom I bury my face in their flowers, marveling at their tiny individual flowers that give us an explosion of perfume and color just for a few weeks out of the year. The rest of the year I pass the lilac bush with hardly a look; maybe with an occasional “See ya in May my good friend!” comment. I measure my years by the lilacs. I think about “One year, it will be the last May that you get to see and smell them,” which is really just a pretty neat analogy of life. It doesn’t last forever. It’s beautiful, fragrant and gone way too fast. So each May I greet them with a smile and my pruning shears. I love the lilacs and want to hold onto them forever. I measure my years by the lilacs.

The stars in my eyes

Sometimes, like tonight, when I stand at the beach at night and look up at the stars I blow my mind. I often blow my mind when thinking about the universe, the infinite size of it all, the length of a light year and just what is out there. If your mind doesn’t feel like it hits a brick wall when you are looking at the night sky, then you need glasses. My earth-bound mind tries hard to understand it all, but it’s like thinking about death and nothingness. BAMM. There goes my mind again hitting that brick wall. I just can’t comprehend it. And yet I so willingly believe everything that the scientists tell me. I happily drink their astronomical Kool-Aid. I love watching “Cosmos-A Space Time Odyssey” the remake of the original Carl Sagan show. My friend Lynn and I watch it like some people watch reruns of “Friends” or “Seinfeld.” We never get tired of the huge concepts that host Neil DeGrasse Tyson lays on us. “WHAT? We may be descended from bacteria that hitched a ride on a meteorite from Mars?” “WHAT? We are just located in that teeny, tiny corner of the Milky Way Galaxy that is located in a teeny, tiny corner of the UNIVERSE that keeps going and going?” Hold it Neil. You just blew my mind. And there’s that the “Cosmic calendar.” I LOVE the cosmic calendar which shows you what the history of the universe would look like if it were a yearly 12-month Earth calendar. We humans would have appeared at like 3 seconds to midnight on the last day. Jeez, so much happened before we got here. So watching Cosmos and standing at my beach overlooking Smithtown Bay makes me wonder… If those dots of light out there in the dark sky really are stars, balls of gas, planets, and collapsing stars, then I think my mind just blew. REALLY? These dots of light are millions of light years away and we are only seeing a small, tiny inch of what is out there. According to Carl Sagan, we are “spinning on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Holy cow. Then Neil tells me that the sun will extinguish itself and run out of fuel in like 5 billion years. “What will all the people do?” I think to myself. Gosh, now I am depressed. This is when my mind short circuits and I think…I am like a salamander. A salamander might think it knows the whole world. Sure, it knows what it can see and touch and hear, but it doesn’t see the whole real world as it really is. We think we know reality, but maybe it not the whole picture. Maybe I am just a salamander. I see only what I can in my limited universe and somewhere, someone is looking down at me thinking, “That poor little creature at the beach is looking up at the sky thinking she knows something, but she is so limited, with her little salamander brain.” Then I just look up at the Big Dipper and say, “Dude, you’re blowing my mind, but regardless, I have to still go to work tomorrow.” And don’t get me started on Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe” and parallel universes…

Sand art

Long time between entries in the Smithtown Bay Journal, but I have been on my post as the Guardian of the Bay and haven't missed too many days on patrol. Windy days last week that had the waves crashing on the shore and measuring about 5 feet! The tide came up and swept away my log tables and seats. It looked as if a vacuum had come down the beach and cleaned up. All the crap is gone, no seaweed left or garbage. So nature did her thing and did a beach clean up without anyone's help. Tonight was cold but lovely and there was some beautiful sand art on the sand bar.

September Splendor

The sunset skies lately have been breathtaking. This one tonight couldn't make up its mind. It was pink to the south, peach to the west, with an explosion of orange everywhere! Owls were hooting, birds were chirping and the fish were literally jumping. It's the universe's gift to me at the end of the day.

Labor Day 2014

Good bye to the crowds! Well, really I don't get crowds here on my beach. But there was that one guy who walked by TWICE in the past two days. So good bye to him. I played "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess tonight while I watched the sun start to sink. Janis Joplin's version of course. It was a nice send off to the summer, but I know the season will linger for another month. The water was so warm today I had to search for the occasional cold spot to feel refreshed. So we still have three more weeks of Summertime, and the livin' is easy; Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high; Oh, your daddy's rich; And your mamma's good lookin';

So hush you little whiny bastard and enjoy what nature has given you!

Horse Shoe Crab Alert 2014 for Smithtown Bay

I am sounding an environmental alarm. This year I have seen so few horseshoe crabs (HSCs)that I am genuinely worried. Where are my little arachnid buddies of the deep? May and June are usually prime months to see the HSCs coming onto the beaches to mate and lay their eggs, but this year so far I think I have seen fewer than five. What gives Mother Nature? This is alarming and I want to know what the experts are saying? Does it have something to do with the harsh winter? Or is nature telling us something about the water? I am not marine biologist but I know what I see, or what I don't see, and there ain't many HSCs this year! What have you observed? The photo was taken last week;

one of the few times I saw my Smithtown Bay friends.

Nature's art

I saw this jellyfish at low tide tonight. It was etched in the sand by the tide and Mother Nature. I always have the feeling that the bay is really like one giant organism that breathes and moves and has a good sense of humor, too. The beach was also smiling tonight. See other photo of sand bar...it sure looks like a grin to me! Where is spring? The migrating ducks and geese are still hanging out. I wish it would just creep up to 40 degrees this week.