Being There

Last night I reveled in just being. We don’t do enough of that. Our lives are so busy and full that we are always on our way to do something, or thinking about what we should be doing, or two steps ahead of where we are right now. But for the past six weeks I have been present in an alternate universe. It’s the universe of unemployment. I have been “between” jobs, actually, waiting to start a new one in a few weeks. It got me thinking about the last time that I could recall not working for more than a week or two. For me, it was 20 years ago when my son was small and I did not work a “real job” for a few years. But then I started thinking about the last time I was not working and really had no other huge responsibility (like taking care of a baby!) That took me back even further. I was 15. Too young to work, too young to drive, summers off and nothing to do but go to the beach and work on my tan. (A tan that predated our knowledge and concern about skin cancer.) So lately I have had the good fortune to just sit and watch the water, the gulls and the sun go down and for the first time in ages, just spend some time being. Sometimes I hear Oprah saying “Are you living your best life? Are you living intentionally?” and former co-workers asking “Just what do you do all day?” but I just tell them “I’m being one with the world, just being. Does anyone ask a sea gull what he did all day? I’m like the lilies of the field!”
Like Peter says in Office Space:
"I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be."
And as I sat there just being, the sun filtered through the clouds (photo) looking like a scene in a movie when heaven is preparing to make a big announcement. Or a miracle was about to happen. Of course I think one happens every night when the sun sets in my backyard.

Blown away

I went kayaking the other morning and the bay was like glass. That’s the way I like it. I am not looking for a challenge. Dragging that two-person, 60-lb boat down to the shoreline is challenge enough. I always do a thorough bug and snake check on it before casting off. I just know that one day I am going to be 500 yards offshore when snake crawls out from some hidden space. It’s like I can see a vision of it happening. I am definitely going to panic, throw myself overboard and then figure out what to do while holding onto the side of the kayak. But I digress from the kayak story. I paddled over to the big rock, which, BTW, looks completely different when viewed from the water! (see photo) Just as I made it to the rock, the winds kicked up and started blowing strongly from off shore. It was intent on pushing me nearly to the LIPA plant in Northport. I had to paddle strongly on one side only. It was like three stokes forward and two back. A relaxing, tranquil outing had turned on a dime. The wind, or El Diablo, as I named it, was trying to tell me who’s boss. The spot on the shore that I was aiming for never seemed to get closer, despite my mad, constant paddling. At least if I died out here, I thought to myself, it will be with really buff-looking upper arms. I thought about George Clooney in “The Perfect Storm.” I think about George Clooney a lot anyway, even when I am not close to drowning. I thought about poor Tom Hanks in “Castaway” and how he never gave up. Then about 200 yards off shore I looked down into the water and realized that it was so shallow I could have hopped out and walked it the rest of the way. But I didn’t. I paddled the rest of the way because I had about a dozen fishermen watching and I do have some pride.

Buzzed

Summer has been giving us a preview and it’s spectacular. The past few days have been what they call in the public relations business “Chamber of Commerce Days.” Smithtown Bay was not as crowded with boaters as I expected. There was a mixture of fishing boats, recreational, jet skis and kayaks. I thought that perhaps the gas prices convinced some families to stay on land. I can imagine the discussion. “Should we eat this week or buy a tank of gas for the boat, Honey?” The beaches were crowded and people from West Meadow Beach even spilled further east along the shore to find some private space. I took my kayak out and paddled over to the Big Rock. There was some kind of unidentified sludge on top of the water over the weekend. All I can say is that it better not be anything that floated over from the Mamaroneck Water Treatment Plant! I do not know what it was, but it could be some kind of algae bloom. (Like I would know how to identify an algae bloom). I have no official credentials. I am not licensed in anything resembling marine biology or environmental science. It was slick and yucky, whatever it was! Today it is GONE. My only gripe-and it’s a big one-are the mosquitoes. I just spent $70 at Home Depot on a varied arsenal of repellents. I even bought that device that you clip onto your pants. It has a little fan in it and blows bad pesticides all around you. I got bit four times in a five minute period. Maybe you are supposed to smash the bugs with the device. Save the $8.99. Tomorrow I am mixing up my all-natural brew of Witch Hazel, Tea Tree Oil and Lavender. If this doesn’t work after spraying it all over my body, then I will just drown the mosquitoes in it.

Stillness of the night

Crane Neck is once again looking like a green finger sticking out into the bay and I was thinking how funny it is that trees do the exact opposite of what we humans do. We are shedding our coats now and want to wear as little as possible, while the trees are full and covered up. In the winter, we put on our puffy coats and the trees stand there naked and shivering. Last night the sunset cast a pink hue on the water and fish were literally jumping out of the water. This was followed by humid and oppressive air that moved in at night giving the Smithtown Bay the look of one of those lakes in a horror movie where all of a sudden hand comes up or the Loch Ness monster makes an appearance. Of course I won't have my camera when that happens.

Romance in the air

Now starts my yearly obsession with Limulus! The horse shoe crab! Who doesn't love them? I just love their consistency and their story of survival over millions of years. I just knew that even if the world HAD ENDED last night, they would have still been scooting around out there in the bay. This is the first mating that I have spotted this season. For the sake of privacy, I will not identify the horse shoe crabs in the photo.

In other Smithtown Bay news, barn swallows have been flitting around down at the water’s edge. Perhaps there is a shortage of barns? I have never seen them there before. I also spotted two oyster catchers (it’s a bird, not a person) last week. I have seen photos of them before but never the real thing. They are extremely shy and I wasn’t able to photograph them but keep an eye out for a little bird with long legs and an orange bill.

Remember the plastic wagon wheels that appeared on our beaches? I wrote a stern letter to the sewage treatment plant in Mamaroneck responsible for releasing them and called for some help with picking them up from our shoreline. Included with my letter were hundreds of the plastic wagon wheels that I have picked on the beach over the past few months. I like to picture the plant manager opening the package and all the wheels spilling out all over his desk.

Wagon wheels and seaweed

I was down at the beach this morning and I have this to report. Stiff wind from the West; hundreds more of the wagon wheels washing up AGAIN and I am NOT HAPPY about that. There is also a lot of my favorite seaweed on the shore. You know the kind that you can POP? I include some photos. I am sure that the windsurfers or kite-surf-board people will be out today, too.

Bird's eye view

I was down at the beach today observing a large flock of those beautiful ducks that I can't properly identify. They are black, white, gray and have nice markings. I was watching them as they took off, all flustered and in a terrible rush. Did you ever notice how when ducks fly them seem so stressed out and nervous? Like someone is always chasing them. I can just imagine what they are are all saying to each other. "AAH! I think I saw something move! Let's go! Go! Hurry!" They are totally the nervous Nellies of the water. If the beach were an office setting, the ducks would be the guys who wear bow ties and suits to the office EVERYDAY. They would always be worrying that something was going to go wrong, or be late, or that there would be traffic on the way home. The seagulls on the other hand would be the office mate who dressed like it was casual Friday everyday. They would probably light up a joint at work if they could. They would be the office mate who says "Don't worry. We'll finish it on time. But first let's go out to lunch. I'm starving." The gulls take so much more joy in life! And they still work hard and get the job done. They just have fun doing it.