botanical_beach ovenbird The shore is a series of shale and quartz shelves. The rock looks like clay into which a giant has repeatedly sunk their thumbs. The giant responsible is the Pacific ocean aided by aeons of wind. Water and sky work together to carve caves and hollows into the rock. When the tide recedes hundreds of pools are left behind, containing intertidal ecosystems that you can peer into as if visiting an outdoor aquarium. I came prepared with a camera and a hand lens and went exploring in a landscape that felt completely alien. Goose Neck Barnacles cling to the rocks in clumps, looking like clutches of oceanic eggs, their surfaces glowing with mother of pearl. Fist sized holes are occupied by purple urchins, which appear deceptively fluffy though I know their "hair" is actually spines. I learn to identify mossy chitons, which appear to have a fern frond tattooed on their backs. Giant green anemones are turquoise eyes staring up from the bottom of tide pools deep enough to submerge myself in. I imagine what would happen if I slipped and found myself in a world to which I am shockingly maladapted. I am nothing like these creatures in body yet I suspect we share qualities of mind. The lives here anchor themselves to their homes using a variety of unique adhesives: anemones have a sticky foot that allows them to cling to underwater substrates, barnacles make their own cement and quite literally fuse themselves to surfaces, chitons manufacture mucus and can use suction to clamp themselves to their homes. My own anchors are more tenuous. My body has drifted far from the first places I called home. Now it's mostly words that scour out a place for me there. I send my voice through networks of cell towers, through thousands of miles of wires and cables, through mail, through dreams, through something halfway between prayer and telepathy. Every day I'm writing myself into the lives of those I love who root themselves to a place I can rarely visit. When I do go home I can feel my own body making a desperate attempt to cement itself to the hearts that feel familiar. Every leaving means stripping away layers of skin as I pry myself away. I watch a snail find its barely perceptible way to somewhere and I wonder if my own travels are similarly slow. One day I might find myself in a place that loves me back but until then I carry with me just enough shelter to make me believe in belonging and just enough softness to feel a path beneath my feet. 250710 what's it to you? who go blather from