To the Editor:
I lean forward as I walk. The wind is stronger as I continue on the beach, shortly before dusk in April. I am walking east, so the sun is at my back, although the wind is not. To my left, seagrass, almond yellow, swaying in the breeze. To my right, the olive-green sea, capped with latte-like wave crests foaming toward the shore.
I have not returned to the beach since Thanksgiving, and it seems like a new beach. The summer crowds have not yet returned, and it is deserted except for a solitary fisherman casting his line in the surf, and a couple holding hands as they walk about a mile beyond me. The calendar says it is spring, but my cheeks insist that the calendar must be wrong.
But it is not the lack of crowds or the temperature that has changed my beach. Even though it is almost low tide, the beach seems smaller. Has it dissolved? Yes, it has. The erosion is immutable. As I move closer to the water’s edge and watch the waves recede, the sand particles can be seen within each undulating wave. It is like watching sugar dissolve in a cup of tea.
But I am not alone. My Labrador, Tessie, is making her observations as well. This is her beach, too. Like me, she hears the surf and feels the wind, but I think her senses add a dimension beyond mine. Her nose twitches constantly. A wet, black spot on a face of yellow. She is taking her olfactory inventory, intermittently retreating into the seagrass. And if she could only catch one of those gulls.
The dusk begins to soften into darkness, and it is time to turn back and return to the car. Come on, Tessie, time to go home. The walk reminds me that solitude is not loneliness. As I reflect on our walk, I think of Hurricane Ian. We can deflect the path of an asteroid millions of miles away, but we cannot control the weather, even a little. Humility, awe, and … fear.
Kevin R. Loughlin
Edgartown
