It was stunningly beautiful at 3 pm.  We met a couple visiting from Salt Lake City.  She had lived in Minneapolis and Boston previously.  They were taking a long weekend here, staying just across the street from the development we so happily inhabit.  There it is, there it is!

Now I look at the skitterers and remind myself they are sandpipers, and at the long-beaked pecking bird and remember it’s a godwit.  What a lovely name.

We dodged the incoming tide today, and so did the birds.  Wet toes are worth it.  I wish I knew how to wrap up the peace of the beach and tuck it away inside me.  Nothing matters there, and everything matters, but nothing bothers.  How could it?  It is so just what it is and doesn’t even need consciousness.

We saw a pair of squirrels in the cliffs yesterday.  Do they know they live in an incredibly beautiful place?  How did they come to be there?  Ground squirrels are different from suburban tree squirrels, I guess, but what strange ground it is!  The dried and crenelated cliffs with their sparse covering of scrub, an occasional poppy, a stray daisy (seed blown from the manicured homes across the road, no doubt) and the ubiquitous California ice plant ground cover trying to take hold in the parched, steep ridges…this is home to squirrels?  Seems unfriendly if not downright hostile.  But there must be something to eat, or they wouldn’t be there.

There is so much for us, so we need to be here.