It was a bright
day. A pleasant breeze blew our hair onto our faces. The sky a Monet sky, a
wintery blue, cool and forgiving, the clouds like freshly sheared fleece, a deliberate,
artistic splash of whipped cream by mature hands.
My daughter
wore wellington boots. I wrapped plastic bags around my ballet pumps! Which
proved very inefficient, the jagged sea rocks quickly tore into them, and my
shoes and feet were soaking. We walked into the shore, the waves had long
receded. Like curtains pulled away from a magnificent piece of art by the proud
creator, just for a moment, allowing us the privilege of witnessing the genius
of the creation.
turning over
rocks, we marveled at little green crabs quickly turning themselves into small
tight fists, then burying themselves in a swift and dramatic tornado that temporarily
obscured our vision of the rock pools. The Rosette Barnacles, numerous, resembling
miniature volcanos that erupted long ago, that are now rusty and moldy with age
and sleepy laziness. Villages, towns, countries of tiny marine creatures; Turban
snails, Limpets and Periwinkles. Every time we
turned a rock, we uncovered a marvelous new secret. How many tens, hundreds,
thousands of years have these rocks been left unturned? Uninterrupted? Unknow? Unseen?
Undiscovered? So many lives, stories, miracles.
We touched, and prodded, and examined in awe, all the quietness, all the
mystery of a superior and more intelligent world. An intelligence that existed millions
of years before us, and one that will outlive us all. The magnificence and the
complexity of an entire universe that remains hidden under water.
Returning every rock to its original place, I imagined the baby crabs going
back to what they were doing, annoyed - a little - by our intrusion. The sharp rock
edges cutting me slightly, and the salty water sharpening the pain. I looked up
at the sky, another universe, a constant reminder of how enormous everything else
is. Everything else?
Feeling small, irrelevant, and superfluous, I murmured to myself: there
isn’t anything in particular that saddens me, only the whole world.
