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.

Winter's lockdown

I am back! Seems a virus had my blog in lock down for three months and I just had a very good friend fix the problem for me. Hello! Smithtown Bay has been in lock down, too-frozen solid like the Arctic Circle. The winter brings such a beauty to the beach. I love the desolation and quiet. Sometimes I just lie on the sand and rocks in my big, fat down coat and watch the clouds go by.

Someone hand me a spoon

The sky tonight looked more like a tiramasu than a sky, layered in pink, blue, white and orange. Even though the setting sun never really showed its face, hiding behind a low ceiling of clouds, it threw its light to create this magic.

Shoeless in November

I never expected it to be so mild this evening when I went down to the beach to watch the sunset. I had to take my shoes off and wade out into the low tide. Then when I came back I

couldn't remember where I left my shoes. They blended in with the rocks and seaweed. Maybe it's early senility. I was sad to think that tomorrow the sun will be going down at 4:50 p.m.!!! I am going to protest this man-made ridiculous rule. I refuse to follow daylight savings times or whatever they call it. IT'S STUPID! I hate it! Who likes it getting dark at 4:50 p.m.??? Nobody, that's who. So on Monday I am showing up at work at my usual time. Rules be dammed.

The best things in life are...well you know.

The moon, stars, planets and tides gave up a treasure tonight--little tiny shells that I love to use in my sculptures. Hundreds of little jewels! Each a work of art in itself. Thank you, Smithtown Bay!! I'd rather be here than anywhere.

I'll take that to go

Today was one of the top 10 best days of the year. Since it was a Monday, some people may not have noticed. But I did. I had the day off. (I know. I look like a genius.) I took my kayak out and Smithtown Bay cooperated by being as still as a lake. The water is so clean that even when I was out quite far I could still see all the way to the bottom. I brought a thermos of tea with me and sat there drinking it, while I just let the tide take me where ever it decided. Not a bad day at the office.

The Stairway Down to Heaven

As I came down the stair case to the beach the other day at around 4 p.m., the light was extraordinary. It was low in the sky and filtering through the trees, but it was more than that. It seemed to be a pure, white light, the kind that the gurus tell you to imagine coming out of the top of your head when you are meditating. All the vegetation around me seemed to be alive and breathing. It was as if I had been given the ability to really feel the life all around me. I stopped in my tracks and just took it all in. It was ethereal and I almost felt as if I had stumbled into a tear in the fabric of the universe. No light could be this pure. No leaf could look so green. Well, unless you are tripping on acid, but you know what I mean. So I guess in the end, if God wants to lure me into that white light, he will

just make it look like a staircase down to the beach, because for me, that would be heaven. "No need to push! I'm going. I'm going."

Submerged

The only place to be this week is submerged in the water like a frog, with just the tip of your head poking up. The water is just perfect right now-refreshing,clean and sparkly! I am filled with gratitude that I live here and can just impulsively jump in the water whenever I feel like it. Last night my friends and I created this Beach Lady, made from all natural ingredients.

Seaweed invasion imprisons horseshoe crabs

Today there was an invasion of seaweed the likes that I have never seen. TONS of it was deposited onto the shore and it was inches deep. Bad timing for my friends the horseshoe crabs who just made their debut today! The ones that got caught when the tide went out were trapped under several pounds of seaweed. Beach Lady to the rescue. I had to look for their tails waving in the air and then I uncovered them. I tossed them back into the water so they can do what horseshoe crabs do this time of year. I hope I made a slight difference by saving 10 of them.

I am supervising the bay and the installation of a new roof

The Beach Lady (me) has been very quiet lately, not because she has lost interest in the beach (Never!) but she has just been in a quiet, reflective mood. That’s what winter and a cold spring can do, but she is awake now and enjoying the sprouting of spring blossoms and bulbs. Here is what’s new in Smithtown Bay: Do you know what Brant Geese are? They are smaller than Canada Geese. They don’t “honk” like those other pain-in-the-ass geese, but make a low, guttural, croaking which is actaully kind of cool. They stay all winter and they are still here—and why not? Who would want to move when you can live in Smithtown Bay? I like to watch how they live side by side with the gulls, although they sure do have a very different temperament. When they see a person or hear a slight noise, OFF they go all flapping and excited. Maybe that’s where the expression “Silly Goose” comes from. The gulls just continue eating and doing what gulls do. The There was one lone fisherman out yesterday evening, the first I have seen since last year. I have seen only a small number of boats out so far--one sail, one Jet Ski, one motor and one kayak (me). I am very confident that this year the dolphins will make an appearance. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I just do. It’s been a few years since they visited us here in Smithtown Bay, so we are due. Last time they were here I was jumping up and down like a crazy person on the beach yelling to everyone, “Do you see the dolphins!” like I was their press agent or something. The Village of Old Field is having some work done on the lighthouse keeper’s dwelling, a 1-1/2 story, five-room house that is made of the same beautiful stones as our light house. The dwelling is located on the eastside of the lighthouse. The little house is getting a whole new roof. Miss Nosy Lois Lane (me) went in to talk to the workers, who I am sure were very excited that some lady was bothering them while they were up on 50-foot ladders and scaffolding. I know I have stated before that I want to live in the lighthouse, but after checking out the small, sweet house, I decided I would be just as happy living there. I will be back tomorrow to finish supervising the remodeling. Aren’t they lucky?

When you meditate, this is where you try to go

I was too late getting home tonight to see the sunset, but I actually caught an even better show. The light and ethereal mood of Smithtown Bay hung in the air long after the sun disappeared to the right of the Northport LIPA plant. The water was as still as a lake tonight, a total 180 degree change from last night when it looked like the South Shore. I stood watching the sky, water and occasionally flying insect buzz by (that’s right…insects have hatched!) and a deer on the cliff behind me made his presence known. I stood perfectly still for 20 minutes just watching him, waiting to see what he did. I only moved my eye balls. He stomped his hoof on the ground as if to see if I would move, but I wouldn’t. Then he snorted. That’s when I started to laugh. It was standoff. A few ducks out in the bay fluttered their wings and I could hear it as clear as day 300 yards from shore. This is why I never gossip while on the beach. The fisherman can hear everything! The bay was like a holy place tonight—still, beautiful and glowing with the colors that I am sure can only be found here on this, my favorite planet.

My Moody Bay

I love my Smithtown Bay even when it’s feeling dull, rainy and lethargic, like today. There was not a sole on the beach today because let’s face-most people and critters and fair weather friends! I’m here. I still love you, Smithtown Bay! It was me and the ducks. I sat on a wet bench and had my moment of Zen, and enjoyed watching the drizzle on the flat, mirror-like surface of the water. That bay sure is a bi-polar presence. Last week that bay was so angry and churned up. Today…ah…just chillin’. I took some photos of the beautiful red sand that runs along the shore line. I just think this sand makes for a perfect backdrop for the shells and rocks. Who needs an art gallery?

Ice Breaker

It is a rare sight to see the Smithtown Bay frozen. But last night when I went down to see the water it was eerily quiet. The water was frozen as far as my eyes could see in the dark. I had to take my hood, hat and ear muffs off to make sure I could hear the water moving at all. The bay was in lock down. This morning, the water was freed from the ice, except for about 30 feet along the shoreline, where it had been transformed into a beautiful frozen pattern of ice. Little ice berg chunks were floating out in the water. All this means one thing—wow, it’s cold. These cold snaps can sometimes result in star fish washing up onto the beach and later today I will set out on an exploration to see if I can find any. Then it’s off to the south shore (Maybe Robert Moses) somewhere around 5 p.m. because I want to try and see the giant orange full moon that is supposed to rise this evening following the sunset. Why didn’t I become an astronomer?

Sunrise hour

The Smithtown Bay usually shines at sunset hour, but sunrise is also magical here. The light is pink and peachy. There seems to be a whole energy shift in the atmosphere at this hour and you can almost feel the Earth and sky waking up. Even the sound of the waves and the wind are different.

I think that even if I closed my eyes and you spun me around in a circle, I could still tell it was sunrise hour. Of course I want to get down the stairs first, before trying that experiment.