Yesterday as I sat in my new writing spot, a small nook off the newly remodeled kitchen, the gray cloudiness of the early morning sky suddenly popped into a brilliant golden color. If I had walked away from the window for a few minutes, or had slept a little longer, I would have completely missed it. In five minutes the golden glow lost its award and we were back to the more normal January winter morning ceremony of gray.

I came to the same seat again this morning anticipating the golden glow, but could see none. It must have to do with how much clear sky is available between us and where the sun first comes over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the east of us, near Watsonville.

The sun yesterday, however, continued its great job of burning through all morning mist and drizzle, enticing me in its not-so-subtle way to get out doors and cook off the winter blahs that had begun to grow inside of me after five days of pounder-downer rain. I packed a rain coat just in case, and camera just in case as well, and headed south in the late morning to one of my favorite hiking beaches close by, Rio Del Mar Beach in Aptos, California.

What a lot had happened here on this beach since I had been to it last, about a week ago. I had been busy at my place of employment all week, and unable to get out and be witness to the fierce winter storms that had also kept local newscasters gainfully employed.

I feel so natural as a storm watcher. In California, I seldom see much violent weather, so when we get some I feel a compulsion to go see. Most of the rough sea, heavy wind, generous tipping of buckets of rain from the sky, had occurred while I worked. What I might see in hiking the beach would be a few telltale remnants of the series of storms.

The hike I do is really more of a walk than a hike, but I like to call it a hike because the word has more of a ring of adventure about it. The Rio Del Mar hike is about two miles round trip, from "the wall" in Rio Del Mar flats to the end of Seacliff Beach State Park, and return. The hike is level, fronts the ocean, and can be conducted on sand or on asphalt. I often prefer the asphalt for walking. I mingle with others getting in their laps, and see close up all the happy campers in the Seacliff RV campground. Yesterday I picked the hard-packed sand because there was so much of what may normally lie on the bottom of the sea now nicely regurgitated onto the beach. Driftwood logs had been drudged up and kelp strands had been ripped from where they normally clutch the rocky reefs on the bottom of the ocean--maybe from Pleasure Point, a couple of miles to the north.

The warm winter sun continued to heat up the Monterey Bay and people who had come to take a look at the ocean were soon pulling off their raincoats, wool hats, and heavy knit sweaters made for the snow country. Kids had donned swim wear and were testing the water temperature. Much sand had been washed away, leaving larger rocks and beds of sea gravel exposed for curious rockhounders who might have seen none of this only a week before. The large piles of kelp lay in distinct, organic heaps for a mile or more. I am interested in what is in these heaps as they tend to sweep other flotsam along with them as they move onshore. Usually the flotsam is inconsequential--odd pieces of plastic that have come apart from some indeterminable larger object--and I saw several examples of a fairly common beach creature known as the flip-flop.

I noticed nearly everyone on the beach interacting with the excessive storm leftovers. People pulling on kelp, picking up shells, bending over logs, carrying odd-shaped pieces of gnarled wood, stuffing plastic zip-loc bags with tiny stones, children poking dead sea birds, and drawing pictures in the sand with long sticks. The surf remained heavy yesterday morning, often obscuring the horizon with massive green walls of water that collapsed with enough force to shake the very beach beneath my feet. Then suddenly and without warning one wave that I would guess to be just about the same size as the previous would accelerate its sweeping motion and move further inland. I saw quite a few people picking up the flotsam turn their backs toward the ocean momentarily and in a splash of a second be up to their knees in quickly moving sea water. How many cameras and leather boots took their toll yesterday!

I feel a renewed sense of wonder and majesty about being human when I come to the beach on a day like this, when there is no price tag on the words "fun" and "exhilaration". I am sure the malls of America were also filled with gleeful shoppers scouring through the ocean of goods made in China. I also think many of those shoppers would like to have been on Rio Del Mar beach yesterday, charging their imaginations in an awesome exchange with the ocean, but for those who could not be there I have made a small video to show what it was like. Somehow a little of my own mumbling got mixed in with the video, but I hope not to excess.





I received a used book in the mail last week that I have been reading the last couple of days. What an inspiring read for those who keep a journal. It is titled "The Hidden Writer" and written by Alexandra Johnson, but that is fuel for another journal entry. The used book came to me with a yellow and black sticker on the side that read "USED". I have seen this same sort of sticker on many of the used books I have read, but this time I wondered to myself if the previous owner of this book had truly "used" the book, or had merely read it. How did the person who put the sticker on the spine of the book determine that? The video above alludes to that. I had to make a note to myself then and there.