Simplify

I'm always carrying too much when I go to the beach. Snorkel gear, snacks, drinks, books, journal, towel, cameras, etc. etc.

Yes, beaching is gear intensive, and much is necessary. This week, however, I'll lighten a few things due to a recent discovery:

I am incapable of reading or writing at the beach. I can only swim or photograph or sit and stare.

And sitting and staring takes by far the majority of time. There is so much to see. The waves, the clouds, the breeze moving the trees, the people, the designs in the sand. And sitting and staring allows thinking as well. That's what I do best a the beach. Think. And it takes no gear at all for that.

Little round treasure

I just got a special glass bowl for my rocks. So now they look pretty. Even the black ones.

Actually the black ones always looked pretty to me. That's why they're in my room and not on the beach.

I know you're supposed to collect shells on beaches, but sometimes rocks are pretty too. I have green rocks and maroonish-purple rocks and white with black speck rocks from the Puget Sound beaches in Washington. I have littler rocks about the same colors from the Mediterranean Sea. They did have bigger rocks there, but I had to carry them home in a suitcase on an airplane instead of in a pile in the back of my car, so I only collected the little pretty rocks from the Mediterranean Sea.

I collected the black rocks the day I was at a beach in Oregon with a heavy load on my mind. I was very sad. I felt like I'd been pounded with wave after wave of hard things.

And then I saw the rocks. I knew they weren't always so round and smooth. They got round and smooth from being pounded with wave after wave of hard things. So me and the rocks shared something. And it occurred to me that one day I might be round and smooth if I survived the pounding. I collected a few of them. And they're beautiful to me.

Come see them in their little glass bowl sometime, and you'll see what I mean.

In the yard

I've been spending a lot of time with weeds lately.

It's that time of year.

And when you spend a lot of time with weeds, you have a lot of time to think.

Maybe if I'd hung onto that iPod my husband was so good as to buy me, I wouldn't be thinking about anything but the lyrics to the songs sung by Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley and other favorites as I dig my weeds.

But because I was so good as to pass along the iPod to someone who liked to think about lyrics (though not those by BR and DH and others), I just plain old think about weeds when I'm spending time with weeds.

About why they're weeds even though some of them are kinda pretty (see photo). About why they have such deep roots that no matter how deep you go you leave a little bit behind. About why they grow so fast and with such abandon when the flowers next to them need such nurturing. About why if you don't dig one up the first week there are dozens the next week.

I bet Benjamin Franklin had a saying about weeds. A dandelion in time saves nine? The early gardener catches.... sorry, not a game I can capably play.

Weeds are kinda like life.

I'll let you figure out how.

And then tell me.