7/29/10 9:38am

Robert Moses Report

This morning the beach was like no other. Two deer to greet me off the parkway were proceeded by one red-tail hawk on the Southern State. One is on the low side of quantity, but he still made me smile. Two more deer down the road; one young male with velvety antlers and one female with a misshapen ear that made her look more like a bounding puppy. The toll booth teenagers weren’t at their posts 'tho it was long after 6. I read a chapter of Lindberg’s Gift from the Sea and wrote a letter before I ever got out of the car. The beach was empty, and a look skyward made me think lightening was a given. I looked for red flags, there were none, but maybe there was no one to stake them. The beach, aside from being empty, looked like it was someplace else. There were cliffs between surf and sand and I thought it might be impossible to get to the water. I found one anyway. Looking again at the sky, I tried to guess how long before this would become dangerous. I shrugged and decided I didn’t care. Looking up and down the beach, I wondered if I had ever before been the only one on the edge as far as I could see before. I started my walk east and allowed the waves to get me as wet as they wished. At some point, I realized I had company and turned back, but not before noticing that the gifts the sea yielded were also different. Too many tiny ghost-white crabs to count, and just as plentiful black seaweed pods* that have the look of something from Star Wars littered the sand like so many H’s. I have no idea what those are called. I have no idea how to find out. [Later: husband says these are stingray eggs. A google image search tells me he is correct.]