Now & Then & Etc

Pacific Beach (on the coast of Washington state)

The sun is going down, the detritus of the beach—razor clam shells, crab shells, bull kelp, driftwood—is scattered about, and the waves roll in from forever.

We have a history here because twenty years ago my wife and I hosted our wedding celebration at Pacific Beach, for us and our families, and we’ve returned here regularly since. Also, it’s on this beach, often sitting against a driftwood log, while looking out to the forever ocean and forever sky, as I’m doing now, that I’ve realized and written some of my deepest thoughts.

Varying detritus, forever ocean and sky, and mortal me with twenty-plus years of memories at Pacific Beach. Gulls are always here, pecking at the crabs. And sandpipers—the little brown and white birds that scurry about—are often here, these transients who are migrating through on their way to northern Alaska. And as predictably as the sun goes down and up, so will the gulls and sandpipers, in some reincarnated form of their current bodies, be here in July of 2026, 2027 and so on, replenished by the cycle of life.

Rain clouds and a rainbow have crept into the sky behind me. Before me, the sun sinks lower, eventually to disappear (for a night) into the sea, and on its way it will cycle the clouds through many shades of twilight colors. Raindrops begin to fall on my notebook paper, so soon I must leave this beach of memories and return to the dry and warmth of our van where my wife is resting and reading.

Thank you, God, for life and time, for nature, for people I love, and for thinking, writing, and prayers.

— MRM