Message in the Sand

I’ve been going to the beach lately just after sunrise in the hopes that I might stumble across a sea turtle.

Not, literally, stumble across a sea turtle—that would be bad, but I am incredibly envious of friends and family posting pictures of sea turtles, in the middle of the day or the morning, in bright daylight, moving through the sand, or swimming through the ocean.

So I arrive at the beach and the moment I step into the sand, my eyes are glued to my feet, to the shells and the seaweed.  I’m looking for movement, for anything that disrupts the endless horizon of either ocean or sandy beach.

And that was how I almost stumbled—literally this time—on words someone had written in the sand.

“God is light.”

It wasn’t the first time I had seen a God-themed message scrawled into the sand at this particular beach.  There is a local church who regularly leaves sunrise messages for surfers and beach walkers in the sand.

I loved this message, though, especially as it was framed by the rising sun.

As I took a step back, I noticed a single line of footprints circumventing the words.  I love that someone took care not to step on the words as if anything with “God” in it, as if anything that spoke some sort of important spiritual truth, was worthy to step around instead of through, even if the words themselves were impermanent.

The tide was moving in and had already clipped the “D” in “God.”

I continued walking up the beach and a short time later was surprised yet again, this time when I almost stepped on a crab. 

There are crabs all over the beach, but they are quick and never let me get close, scuttling (I really love that perfect word) back into their holes, only coming out occasionally to throw out another clawful of sand from their underground lair.

But this crab was large and a foot away and wasn’t moving.

At first I wondered if it might be dead, but then I moved and it flinched.

And that was when I noticed it only had one eye.

I squatted down in front of it, taking out my camera and snapping a few pictures, and all the while talking to it.

“It’s okay,” I said.  “I’m not going to hurt you.”  I took another picture.  “I am so sorry about your eye.  That’s horrible.  But look at you, you’re hanging in there.  You’re doing good.”

I stood up and moved on.  I continued walking and while I saw plenty of turtle tracks—they look like something made by an ATV, one that mysteriously appears from the ocean, heads up the beach, buries itself in the sand for a bit, then makes a u-turn and heads back for the water—I didn’t see any turtles.

I was careful to step around the tracks and not through them.  I’m not sure why except that life is so fragile (just look at my one-eyed crab) that I don’t want to do anything to disrupt it for another living being.  I don’t want to be Goldilocks helping herself to someone else’s bed and porridge.  (And really the bears were perfectly within their rights to gobble her up if they chose.)

Everything has a story to tell, the one-eyed crab, the sea turtle, even the land itself.

I headed to the Wetlands the other day, when it was dry enough for me to drive the roads.  The wet weather has done amazing things for the Wetlands.  Everything is green and what was once desert just a few weeks ago is now a replenished pond.  The birds are back.  The deer are still in the field.  Why would they leave now with so much more food around?

But I noticed, as I stopped to look at that water, that the water was clear enough for me to see the ground underneath.

And even covered by several feet of water, the ground looked exactly as it had during the drought, cracked and scarred.

The drought had wounded it and it had not yet recovered.  The scars remained.

Everything has a story.

When I figured I wouldn’t see any sea turtles, I turned around and headed down the beach, stepping closer to the water this time.  I passed my one-eyed crab.  It had only moved a few inches.  And when I got to the “God is light,” message, I discovered that the water had already washed it away, leaving nothing but the smallest, the lightest, the faintest of imprints behind, imprints that would disappear completely in minutes.

This is the miracle of the ocean tides.  Today there was one story, God’s first draft perhaps, but tomorrow there will be another.  And will we be sharp enough to notice?