Just west of the city of Tillamook, Oregon I discovered a little town called Oceanside clinging
to a cliff overlooking the Pacific.
Down
a flight of stairs was a wide, sandy shore.
There I went to do a little beach combing while I waited for the tide to
go out. A few other explorers and dog
walkers were already there enjoying the quiet rush of waves.
Some
were launching kites in the ocean breeze.
I’d
heard this was a place where agates could be found so as I walked, I kicked
around through the seaweed deposited by the retreating waves just to see what
would turn up.
The
beach was long and I walked for quite a while finding little more than a few
broken shells and some sand crabs.
I finally
discovered a small agate among some gravel.
Then
I found a broken compass, the kind that’s usually attached above the windshield
inside a car or boat. I rolled it around
in my hand and dropped it in my jacket pocket.
A
few minutes later I met a man walking and chatting with a boy who looked to be
around six, judging by the gap in his grin next to a brand new grown-up tooth. He carried a gallon-sized plastic bag almost
filled with shells, crab legs, chunks of drift wood and pebbles. The breeze ruffled his sandy hair as he
looked up to see who I was.
I retrieved
the broken compass and held it out.
“Look, I found Jack Sparrow’s compass.
See, it doesn’t point north.” The
dad grinned as the boy looked to him for assurance. “Here, take it” I said. “Maybe it will help you find what you want.”
The
boy gazed at the gadget while his dad reminded him about Captain Jack and his
pirates of the Caribbean. I also showed
them my agate, wished them a good day and went on down the beach.
I’d
brought along my camera and took a few reference photos of the sea, the birds,
and objects scattered about by the outgoing tide.
I
found a still life arranged by Nature on the sand and used reference photos to reproduce it in this watercolor when I returned home.
“And then,
some morning in the second week, the mind wakes, comes to life again. Not in a
city sense—no—but beach-wise. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in
gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what
chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth
white sand of the conscious mind; what perfectly rounded stone, what rare shell
from the ocean floor.” --Anne Morrow Lindbergh--Gift from the Sea
