An August Beach Evening

Early August.

Early evening.

Setting sun.

I stand on Zmudowski Beach in Monterey County.

In my hands is a surf rod.  I am transfixed by the colors and visual textures of the setting sun‘s effect on the world within my sight.  The sun’s golden colored orb settles slowly into the waters in front of me.  Clouds in bright reds and purples cast shimmering colors across the waves at my feet.  Birds are either painted in glowing shades, or drawn in black ink silhouettes in the sky. 

Flights of Brown Pelicans alternate northward skimming the breakers, and southward, high above the sands.  Caspian Terns hover and dive just off shore.  Three fly past in single file, each a small perch in its beak.  Two dolphin cruise out on the far side of the breakers, while a sea otter floats and paddles within the rolling waters. 

Looking left, and looking right, I can count exactly 13 people.  Only 14 of us here.  On this 5 miles of beach, in the center of Monterey Bay’s crescent, in the height of vacation time, only 14 people.  All but two of us are fishing. 

Quickly running the math in my head, and assuming that most of these fishermen come to the beach a couple times a week, means that fewer than 2500 people see this magnificent tableau each year.   

I have lived just 5.7 miles from Zmudowski beach for almost 25 years, and this was only my third visit there.  The fishing pole in my hand I had bought at a garage sale some 10 years earlier and this is the first time I have ever stood on the beach, casting into the surf. 

 

Jade Cove is a small scarf of headland where the Pacific Ocean crashes full force into the land just south of the Big Sur area in central California.  There, in the tumbling, crumbling, grinding tailing pile that is the “beach” jade can be found.  Jade, in green, and pink, and purple.  Jade.  One of the most beguiling of the rocks that are formed in the superheated interior of this planet. 

And free for the taking. 

The hike down to the beach is short, the waves pound in and hiss up through the skree piled up as a beach.  Gulls and terns, pelicans, and cormorants cruise the winds.  Colors and textures of rocks and dirt, plants and sky blend together.  Tiny fingerling fish dart back and forth among the stars and jellies trapped in small pools awaiting the returning tides.  The beauty in this cove is remarkable.

I have known of Jade Cove for most of the 25 years I have lived in the Monterey area, and two months ago was the only trip I have ever made there.  During the entire time I spent prowling and poking in and among the tide pools and searching the rock beach for jade, only two other people where there.  Fewer than 1100 people a year. 

 

Why?  

Why is it that we humans can so cut ourselves off from these wonders that surround us?   

What makes the flickering light of the pretend world and lives of the pretend people on our televisions, our computer games, or in our books so seductive that we willingly sacrifice our own real lives for them? 

Those unreal manifestations suck our very days into their inhuman existence.  Leaving us to merely exist as well. 

Why don’t we go outside and live instead? 

 

I for one, am resolved to do so. 

I have gathered my outdoor equipment, my boots, my hat, my binoculars.  I have sorted my fishing gear, my bow, my guns, my tent, and stove, and lantern.  I am cleaning and adjusting my bike, and tuning my car.

I am making a list, of all the beautiful places that I know, and the places that I have heard of, and the places that I can find on maps, and on the internet. 

I renounce the inside, sit at home, world. 

I embrace life.

 

Copyright © 2013 - Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved