I subscribe to a newsletter, The Marginalian, by Maria Popova. Often it seems to come at just the right time, like when a book appears in your life just when you need it, then later means so much less, because you’ve moved to a different place in life. Popova’s writing is beautiful, packed with depth and kindness, and she often bares her soul to the reader, for the reader, and of course, for herself. I find her essays and musings to be some of the best writing I’ve read anywhere. This was her intro paragraph today:
“In my darkest hours, what has saved me again and again is some action of unselfing — some instinctive wakefulness to an aspect of the world other than myself: a helping hand extended to someone else’s struggle, the dazzling galaxy just discovered millions of lightyears away, the cardinal trembling in the tree outside my window. We know this by its mirror-image — to contact happiness of any kind is “to be dissolved into something complete and great,” something beyond the bruising boundaries of the ego. The attainment of happiness is then less a matter of pursuit than of surrender — to the world’s wonder, ready as it comes.”
Who writes like that?
Today was my last full day at Hunting Island State Park. I arrived here on Feb. 12, and ended my time here the same way I began: by not catching any fish. But more than that, I walked the beach this morning, as I did the evening I arrived. The windswept dunes, the shells and tufts of errant cordgrass, and every little thing an obstacle to the sand, a form for the wind to dazzle with its ephemeral artwork. And then to move on and create something new, someplace new.
I’m nostalgic about my time here. I’ll miss the wide open beach at low-tide, wider than a football field and packed tightly enough to bike on for miles. And I’ll miss Terry, the seagull who stood by me despite my failures, day after day after day as I fished, waiting for anything at all to happen. I’ll miss the whimsical cabbage palm trees, presenting like the pages of a Dr. Seuss book come alive. And I’ll miss discovering the endless evidence of creatures on the beach—today I found many small holes in the sand, signs of excavation work and the tracks of crustacean workers (ghost crabs, said a park ranger). But I know too that had I not gotten so sick, I would have stayed too long. I am restless for new scenery, for new trails to travel and a different kind of traveler than a beach goer.
Tomorrow I head inland to Osceola National Forest, Florida, a solid 5+ hours of driving. They have swamps there, and alligators, and I don’t know what else. I (think) I’ll be staying at a place called Ocean Pond, which must be a joke, because a pond is small, an ocean large, and this is not quite either. There are no reservations taken, and I’ll need to find a place with limited tree coverage so Starlink satellite internet works. If it doesn’t, I’ll find someplace else.
Leave a reply to cfmusg78 Cancel reply