Happiness is a choice. I’m deciding to think positive in 2022, starting with things around us that I have admired recently.
As usual, I like our walks, watching the birds along the shore, and in our yard. There isn’t much overlap, as the herons like the sandy edge of the water. Most of the herons, regardless of color, grow a long trailing feather or two that hangs down their back like a ponytail.
I don’t have as many photos of birds in our yard, because they are small and move fast. The most fun are the Pacific parrotlets, tiny yellow/green/blue parrots smaller than a parakeet. Wrens are tiny brown birds with a pretty song that try to be invisible. We see them zipping from one tree trunk to the next.
Our daily walk on the beach shows nature full of patterns. I’ve begun looking at the patterns made by foam on the underside of the waves as they rise up out of the water. Just before they crash, there is a web of foamy lines for a few seconds. Waves make patterns as they sweep in and out. Our beach has frequent backwards waves, where the undertow rushes out from the beach and hits the incoming waves in a small explosion of spray. I’ve seen kids riding the backwards waves out until they get “smacked” by the meetup of sprays. I’ve tried it myself.
One section of our beach has mica in the sand, and the retreating waves leave herringbone patterns of dark and light sand with golden highlights of mica in a tweedy pattern anyone would love if it were fabric.
The rocks always look bare to me, after watching people scrape up seaweed, fish, crabs, and any other living thing. Yet there seem to be a lot of starfish, still clinging to the weedy rocks despite the intrusion of daily visitors.
We are out again in the evening. We take cups of tea or cold drinks, a small table to hold cards and bowls of popcorn. Easy chairs on wheels bump up the step to the front patio, and we settle in, waving to passing neighbors while we watch the sun dip beneath the waves. The brightest colors in the sky come after the sun is down, when the sky turns pink and purple over the horizon, while the sky overhead is still blue. Lately, Venus has risen just over the sunset colors. In a photo, it’s the tiniest white dot, while in reality, it is a steady, bright star.
On some days, curlicues of clouds are fringed with gold, then pink, then dark blue as the light changes. When you see that the sky at sunset is different every day, and has been different every day since the world began, and will be different every day there ever is….you have a definition of infinity.
January first is another day in the cycle. I am going to start fresh.
Llywindatravels 2022 