baby turtles at dawn

Ever since I learned that the existing water on earth is the only water there will ever be, I look at the ocean differently. As I walk on the beach, I attempt the impossible task of wrapping my mind around the fact that the waves crashing on the shore are made of clouds that have fallen from the sky and run down the hills, collected, consumed, and returned to the land by humans and animals alike… for millennia. The earth, a gigantic, tiny terrarium floating in space. I then look at the sand giving way under my feet and wonder what it once was: rocks, mountains, caves, bones, or ocean floors? I try to imagine the unimaginable number of creatures whose feet wandered it before me. In my mind’s eye, civilizations and topographies, rising and falling in time-lapse fashion, around me as I move down the beach.

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I wandered upon a baby sea turtle on the beach today as the sun rose into the sky. Motoring with all his might across the great expanse of sand before him, his flappy little swimming arms served the temporary purpose of delivering him to the sea. I was cheering him on with all the affection of a mother as her baby takes its wobbly first steps, when the slow rolling low tide swooped in and gently carried him towards the break, him aiding with a vigorous breast stroke. “Keep swimming, little guy! You can do it!” I yelled into the crashing waves, concerned he’d get tossed back to shore and have to start over again. Turns out the ocean was on his side today. I watched him dip easily below the break, then into the deep sea, where he swam away towards his tiny turtle destiny.

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