Tag Archives: Beach

Beach Morning

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Beach rocks Sherry swam to
A closer view
Sherry nearly to shore
New arrival via raft from one of the offshore yachts. Trying to get free from his flotation device.
Thanks, Mom
Doggie camaraderie.
The beach house
Sunset partiers
Morning visitors.
Our friends’ beach house
Beach decor
Beach walking
Living room
Back patio
Dining room
Front garden of beach house
Poolside visitors
View to the north from “our” deck.
Offshore rocks in zoom.
Sherry’s flipper

Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.

These photos are all out of sequence and Word Press seems to have changed things so I can no longer put them in the order that they occurred. The last photo is of Sherry’s flipper as she swam back to join us at the beach restaurant. I’ve spent two hours trying to get the photos in sequence and another half hour with WP tech help to no avail. If anyone reading this knows of a more writer-friendly platform for blogs, please let me know. So sorry that Word Press is getting progressively more non-cooperative.

Beach Morning

Fear of contact with that first cold wave keeps me lingering in bed this second morning at the beach. I can hear the surf that pounds the beach just ten yards from the garden wall of the house where I am staying for a week with friends. If they manage to rouse me from my warm nest, we’ll probably walk again down the beach to sit at a table at the Playa Azul to await Sherry’s return from her long swim to the offshore island and back. She resists the group swim that will take place later, the participants attached to floats on their backs to ward off overenthusiastic speed boaters  who otherwise might stray too close, forgetful of the fact that other humans traverse these waters unencumbered by craft. It is her opinion that this daily journey is best accomplished in private, face to the water, snorkel fins flopping like friendly pats upon the ocean’s surface, as if to beat a friendly reminder that someone is about to visit.

Every January and February (and sometimes March) for years, I stood in these same waters, closer to shore, doing my thousand exercises while fighting the waves–lifting on their inward journey to land, feet settling again to sand on their outward pull back out to sea. Having nearly drowned once long before while Kayaking the Rogue River in Oregon, I preferred water with the security of a firm surface under my feet, even if it was just at intervals.  What snorkeling adventures I have participated in since that near-fatal water adventure have included a boat within swimming distance, and so sitting here with longtime friends, discussing past adventures and writing and those other beach visitors that walk past us on the beach, I can’t help but keep an eye peeled for a view of Sherry’s flippers, flopping into view a mile or so away across the water, circling the small island, moving away from the sailboat that veers in her direction.

She will return to land, removing her false frog feet, shaking water from her second skin, to join us for coffee and hotcakes and eggs, chilaquiles or breakfast burritos, orange juice and papaya. Joined together again in the most communal of activities–a shared meal–we will again be united by those activities we share: laughter, tall tales, plans for the day, watching beach dogs, memories of past camaraderie, shared absent friends, plans for the rest of the day. This vacation at the beach after two years’ absence is a balm that soothes my soul and makes me thankful for this day, in spite of the future that might await us due to those others who guide the fate of the world. This day, this hour, the minute behind us and those long minutes in front of us are ones of our own making, and they are perfect.

Prompt words today are fear, opinion, forgetful and cold wave.

Travel Challenge, Day 5

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I was nominated by my friend Konstanze Venus to post one favorite travel picture a day for ten days without explanation, then to nominate someone else to participate. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations. I may not make it to the end of ten days, but for now I nominate Dolly at Koolkosherkitchen . Some people I nominate may be on Facebook and others on blogs. Just post wherever you wish but link to me so I know you have. If you are not interested, no problema.

Nowhere in the rules does it say you can’t guess where the photo was taken and that I can’t agree if you are right, or keep guessing if you aren’t. Or answer any other questions you might ask. It’s just that I can’t publish any explanation in the original post!

Go HERE to see my Travel Challenge photo, Day 6.

Forecast

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Forecast

The frugal rays of winter’s sun, sifted through the trees,
seem to have lost their power. They can’t dispel the freeze.
We watch the speckled darkness to try to find a sign
that promises the advent of a weather more benign.
The purity of winter, frigid and refined,
is melted in the heat of a summer sort of mind.
We stretch out on the beaches of our memory,
viewing with our minds that baked futurity.
Wound up in our mufflers, sealed snuggly in our gloves,
we sit on benches in the park, recalling summer loves.

 

 

Word prompts today are darkness, frugal, watch and refine.

Tidelines

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Tidelines

The water laps from shore to shore,
From India to Ecuador,
bringing precious things and more—
dried starfish and an apple core,
a never-ending seashell store.

The water laps up ever higher.
The ocean wave will not expire. 
Tide on tide, it does not tire,
topples chair, douses campfire,
to the wind’s insistent choir,

The water laps around my feet
in the day’s insistent heat,
always destined to repeat,
to the moon’s consistent beat,
this constant rising from its seat.

The water laps against the dock.
Listen to its constant knock,
testing the seawall, block on block,
undiminished by the tock
of nature’s ever-ticking clock.

The water laps by halves and thirds
against the sides of ships and birds.
All its shores it scours, then girds,
undetained by  poets’ words.
To stop the sea? it is absurd!

 

For NaPoWriMo’s “repetition poem” prompt.

 

We Gather to Write

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We Gather to Write

Waves crashing in below us and jovial repartee
from the ones below us in the small café.
The waiter interrupts us. We order coffee, tea,
or jugo de naranja, but, dedicated, we
return to our writing. It’s what we’ve gathered for,
here where it is quiet, up on the second floor.
Leather covered tables, and equipales, too­­––
tablecloths of orange, yellow, purple, green and blue
as though they had instructions to make use of every hue.
These vivid pigments  seep into all we write and do.
Children leap through tide breaks, walkers gather shells.
Swimmers move hand over hand, out beyond the swells.
But we above just write of it, revealing how we love it
as though we were a part of it instead of here above it.

Undulations

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Undulations

The constant undulation and the murmur of the waves.
The crashing of the breakers as they beat against the caves
carved out by the chisel of the water making hives
at the edges of the world that ensconced our busy lives.

It craved us as its audience. It pulled us to its shore.
It calmed our petty grievances with its might roar.
When it chose to rage it could wipe away our world,
sweeping us away as its anger came unfurled.

At other times it lapped at us, assuaging all our pain.
That’s why we returned to it, over and again.
Walked along its edges, pierced its salty deep,
uncovering the secrets so long within its keep.

Every morning it brought treasures to our waiting hands
to examine as we walked along the morning-evened sands.
Dollars from the ocean depths, stars out of the sea––
left there to be taken or to be let be

for the next beachcomber to claim them for their own
to treasure on a mantel what the sea had thrown
like necklaces at mardi gras, cast blindly and for free
for denizens of dry worlds to collect on bended knee.

What we cast back on the waters determines ultimately
what the sea will one day give back to you and me,
and if we do not listen to the truth the tides may tell,
the music of the waves may be our funeral knell.

The prompt today is undulate.

Life and Death at the Beach

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Life and Death at the Beach

With babies, every day is an education. This little story was acted out when we went to Tenacatita beach for the day. Down the beach, a tragedy was being enacted as a group worked to resuscitate a drowned man.  Seconds after I viewed this touching scene as two mothers deal with the interaction between their babies, we realized what was happening in the background and we went down to see if we could be of aid.  The oxygen I’d gone back to the house to get at the last minute before we left for the beach was of no aid to them, however, as though they worked diligently on the man and got his heart beating again, they never were able to get him to breathe on his own.  One tragedy, one story of new life.  This cycle is never more obvious than on the beach, but never before so graphically as depicted on this day. To see the happier story, you must click on the first photo.  All photos will enlarge and be presented as a slideshow, complete with words.

One baby running down the beach
towards another, still out of reach
who sees a shadow on the ground–
small human who has circled ’round.
Bending down, there is a hand
reaching towards him in the sand.
A friendly pat,
arms coming ’round
to lift him skyward from the ground.
Two mothers come to supervise
Guiding hands and watchful eyes.
Both tell this tiny little boy
Puppies are cute, but not a toy.

The prompt word today was baby.

Sounds of Morning: Two Portals

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The front and back of my beach rental open onto two different worlds.  One is a world of cars, loud motorcycles, passing vendors with loudspeakers mounted on their trucks and at night, kids collecting to drink beer and blast music, other music from bars, mufflerless motorcycles and laughter.  The other opens onto a pristine beach with sea birds, fishermen, dogs, sand, an informal “beach bar” where neighbors gather each night to sip tequila and watch the sunset.  Since my beach cottage is essentially two large rooms with wide openings between and sliding glass doors and window that open onto the beach, plus another high double window that opens onto the street and that needs to be left open for ventilation, every morning I awaken to both worlds.  And this year, the additional sounds of Morrie who is ready to be let out for morning functions, to be fed and then to be taken off (with tennis ball) for another morning’s adventure. Between his basic functions and the beach walk, however, looms a matter of more importance:  THE BLOG!!! Sorry Morrie. One minute more, while I post this!

(Click on any photo to enlarge all and view gallery.)

Sounds of Morning

The music I awaken to when I’m at the beach
is a symphony of sounds nearby and others out of reach.
The gentle whirring of the fans beside me and above,
and sounds outside my kitchen door that I have grown to love:
the spread out carpet of the surf, the stirring of the dog—
as I lie here on the couch, sorting out my blog.
The day can’t really start for me until I’ve shed my words.
We cannot walk upon the beach to watch the soaring birds
and throw or chase the tennis ball as we do every day
until I shake the words out and put them all away.
The subtle tapping of the keys, the gas truck passing by
outside the bedroom window with its annoying cry
of “Ze-ta, Ze-ta, Ze-ta gassssss.”
(I cannot wait for it to pass!)
Then other traffic sounds fill in
to fill the space where it has been.
One room leaks in beach sounds to tell tale after tale
of needle fish and rooster fish and tuna, snapper, sail—
my porch like a receiver that gathers all these sounds
of nature and of passers-by with which this beach abounds.
Yet the bedroom window opens onto a busy street.
I hear the passing traffic, the sound of passing feet.
Neighbor greeting neighbor and the gas truck’s bray—
all the usual street sounds of a noisy Mexican day.
The dog protests more earnestly. He’s ready for our walk.
He has no patience for this blog—its ponderings and talk.
So I save what I have written, content with what’s at hand
to wander off in other worlds of wind and surf and sand.

The prompt word today was sound.