Beach finds create an exotic bloom. I believe they are the gills of a fish and ????? Perhaps a portion of dried kelp
For Cee’s FOTD
Exotic Bloom: FOTD July 6, 2022
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Tag Archives: beach combing
Looking Down on Things
My favorite thing to do is to look down, Cee! Thanks for this prompt.
or the potential of this live crab?
and this strand of freshwater pearls, knocked off the table where a beach vendor was displaying her wares to us. The pearls looked so good there,
that I decided to put my key limeade down in the sand as well.
https://ceenphotography.com/2017/02/21/cees-fun-foto-challenge-looking-down-at-things/
Grounded: Cee’s Black and White Challenge
I, for one, am always looking down. Especially at the beach.
https://ceenphotography.com/2017/01/05/cee-black-white-photo-challenge-ground/
Beach Walk
It was 35 years ago that I first ran away from home to go live at the beach. For the past 15 years, I have never lived more than 4 hours away from the ocean, and for 20 years before that, I was within 20 miles of it. During these years, I have written hundreds of pages of poems and stories about the the beach, and as I sat here for two hours today, reworking what perhaps was one of the first poems I ever wrote as I spent a year going to the beach every day to write, it suddenly occurred to me that I would rather be doing art, using the boxes of material collected on the beach during the two months I spent there this year, than writing about the experience. I’ve already done that, and here is where you can find it: https://judydykstrabrown.com/category/beach-poems/
That URL will get you to the most recent beach poems. (You’ll need to scroll down past this one once you’ve clicked on the URL above.) To see earlier ones, go to the archives (near the bottom of the scroll next to a poem entitled “flip flop”) and select November, 2014 or December, 2014 for older poems.
Please join me in beach combing by taking a walk backwards—as far as you choose to go—through three years of beach poems—reading and looking at what you wish. Some poems you may just walk by or pick up in your hands and then cast away. Others you may examine closely, reading them in their entirety. And some, I hope, you will choose to store away on the shelf of your mind to remind you that you came from the sea and it is always there for you to go back to.
Now, for the rest of the day, I’m going to do what I’ve wanted to do for a month and a half now—unpack some of the boxes of shells, stones, bones, sand, corroded metal, driftwood and assorted beach trash found on the beach as well as uncompleted “found” sculptures begun in January and February. Then, I’ll “do” for a day instead of writing about it.
Please enjoy your beach combing today as I’ll enjoy mine.
Beach Combing
“Beach Sunset” bone, shell, wood, coral, sponge, beach scrub and acrylic paint, 3.5 x 11 inches, Mixed media assemblage by Judy Dykstra-Brown, March, 2016
Beach Combing
I gave nothing to the sea, so she gave nothing back.
It was as though she looked and thought, “There’s nothing that you lack.”
It’s true that I have all I need of food and friends and fun,
and yet I still lack something that’s waiting to be won.
It isn’t gained by medals, by prizes or by fame,
for it is some other thing, bereft of rank or name.
There is some magic in the world that I go looking for
that has no set place where it lives, no windowpanes or door.
I’ve found it once or twice before, in places far afield
by accident, for if you try to force it, it won’t yield.
It isn’t found at parties, a fiesta nor a fete.
If you go looking for it, the magic will abate.
It’s found in how you do things, in what manner, at what pace.
If you reach too quickly, it will vanish with no trace.
I can’t tell you how to gain it, for I fear that I don’t know.
I just know that when I found it was when I was going slow.
Life’s a Beach
Life’s A Beach
Here are a few pictures of what I’ve been up to since I arrived at the beach on Saturday.
The porch was rebuilt on Casa Gaviotas, but instead of bamboo and wood, it is now concrete and stone. The palapa roof seems to have survived the hurricane. The little palapa structure to the right of the orange building is Casa Gaviotas–my home away from home.
First night, a little party/jam session at Carol’s house:
Guitar, harmonica and flute. Not a bad combination. We mouthed the words we weren’t sure about but came on strong during the choruses!!
Loved this painting by Carol on the wall of the kitchen. The butterly is so realistic.
Um, more realistic than I’d initally realized, I surmised as the moth flew to a new location on the painting.
This little fella high up on the wall added his own chorus to the music.
El Gato from next door comes every morning for a nibble that isn’t fish. Usually he depends on the gifts of kind fishermen who share their catch with him. Quite a life for a cat. Here he keeps an eye on both fishermen, ready for breakfast to be tossed his way.
We inherited him as a kitten five years ago when we were here when the French lady who got him from the shelter left. I meant to take him home with me but when the time came, he refused to come with me, preferring his free and easy beach life and fresh fish every day. so Daniel next door agreed to look after him. Now I see him each time I come to the beach and he slips back into being a little bit my cat–especially around meal time. I call him Bobino. Handsome cat, and he shows the beach dogs who is boss!
Both nights, sunset tequila ceremony at Daniel’s–a nightly occurrence, year round:
Both mornings, I walked the beach, but not many offerings so far:
I’ve been swimming every day, took walks both mornings, wrote a bit and cooked up a pot of chili and another pot of spaghetti sauce. I like cooking in big lots and then not cooking for the rest of the week. I took some chili over to Daniel next door, then had a visit from my friend Michael. Yesterday Linda visited.
3 o’clock. Time for a swim. Another lazy day in paradise. No snow so far.
I did the below prompt over a year ago. You can see it on the WordPress site. So, I’m instead telling a bit about beach life today!!!
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/cant-stand-me/
Leavings
Leavings
Do I walk the long kilometers of beach
to look for the next shell
or stand stable, like that woman
casting and recasting her hook,
patiently waiting to pull her world in to her?
I’m gathering things
that I’ll collect into stories–
pinning them down to use like words.
Nothing wrong in finding meaning
through a piece of driftwood, a stone or shell.
Objects are only things
we cast our minds against
like images against a screen–
a shadow glimpsed crossing a window shade.
My shadow cast in front of me
is such a different thing
from one I cast behind.
In the first, I am constantly hurrying
to catch up to what I’ll never catch up to.
In the other, I am leaving behind
what I can only keep by walking away from it.
I take this place along with me in clear images–
not as they were, but as my mind has cast them;
so every picture taken of the same moment is different,
each of us seeing it through our unique lens.
We cast these things in bronze or silver-gelatin,
stone, clay or poetry.
A grandma holds out pictures of her children
and her grandchildren. See? Her life’s work.
And then this and this, without further effort on her part.
I share stories of children I don’t know
who gently unwind fishing line from a struggling gull,
hearts found on the beach
or other treasures nestled in a pile of kelp.
I find my world in both these findings and departings;
the leaving each morning to go in search of them
the part I find most exhilarating–
perhaps teaching this woman
of the death-themed night-terrors
not to worry.
That longer leaving is just a new adventure.
People who do not remember let me slip away
when I would have held on, given any encouragement.
Yet fingers, letting go, flex for that next adventure.
Life is all of us letting go constantly–
taking that next step away from and to.
A white shell. I have left it there
turned over to the brown side,
so someone else can discover it, too.
This is a rewrite of an earlier poem, in response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “If You Leave.”Life is a series of beginnings and endings. We leave one job to start another; we quit cities, countries, or continents for a fresh start; we leave lovers and begin new relationships. What was the last thing you contemplated leaving? What were the pros and cons? Have you made up your mind? What will you choose?
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 