Beachcombing at Miramar
Grateful acknowledgment is given to quote from the following:
“Why Do I Love You,” written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.
Copyright © 1927 PolyGram International Publishing, Inc. Copyright Renewed. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved.
“This Dim and Ptolemaic Man,” from
Selected Poems of John Peale Bishop
by John Peale Bishop. Copyright © 1941 John Peale Bishop; copyright renewed © 1969 Margaret G. H. Bronson. Reprinted with
the permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
BEACHCOMBING AT MIRAMAR. Copyright © 1996 by Richard Bode. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission
in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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ISBN: 978-0-7595-2389-0
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1996 by Warner
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.
for julian bach
who believed in me before I believed in myself
Contents
Chapter two: dollars in the sand
Chapter three: a lonely stretch of beach
Chapter five: girl with a crab
Chapter seven: stone with a hole in the center
Chapter eight: the motions of the world
Chapter nine: the raven and the radar
Chapter ten: the stone skimmers
Chapter eleven: the surf caster
Chapter twelve: written in the sand
Chapter thirteen: by - the - wind sailor
Chapter fourteen: the sphinx of the seashore
Chapter fifteen: woman fishing from a pier
Chapter sixteen: the beachcomber of miramar
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but
it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.
—H
ENRY
D
AVID
T
HOREAU
the child sees
I
’ve been walking the sands of Miramar for a full year now, and during that time I’ve met many people who say they would like
to become a beachcomber like me. They view it as the easiest job in the world. They think all it takes is the proper garb:
white canvas pants rolled up to the knees, faded blue denim shirt, and straw hat to protect their face from the sun. A few
actually go to a fancy store and pay a fancy price for garments they believe will change them into the sort of person they
think they would like to be.
I see them strolling the shore for a month, a week, a few days, their heads down, plucking stones and shells from the sand.
They pause to chat with me, pulling a seawashed treasure from a deep pocket, as if they had found an amulet they lost a long
time ago. But in due course they disappear, having returned, I suppose, to that other occupation they had been so desperate
to leave behind.
They seem not to know, when they wander to the edge of the sea, that a beachcomber’s life is a demanding one that calls for
discipline and zeal. One must venture down to the beach every day without fail and splash ankle-deep in the white surf or
walk barefoot on the hot sand. But it’s not the hiking; it’s the endless seeing that causes the psychic strain. It’s the richness
of life in the tidal zone, the sea palm and bull kelp, the limpet shells and mole crabs. Someone not used to such abundance
can grow weary quickly trying to gather it all in.
In my wanderings on this stretch of beach, I’ve learned to pace myself so that I’m not overwhelmed. I don’t run, I don’t walk
rapidly, I don’t attempt to raise my pulse rate; I’m not here to lose weight or exercise my lungs. I’m here to watch my shadow,
sometimes short and sometimes long, depending on the position of the fleeting sun over my head.
I’m not a collector, at least not in the conventional sense of the word. Like my forebears, I’m a huntergatherer, but not
of objects, although I once brought back to my house above the dunes a worn Monterey pinecone and a smooth piece of driftwood
on which someone had carved the words: “Life is but a dream.” I tacked the sculpted plaque to my front door where I confront
those fateful words each time I come home.
Nor am I a painter, although I wish I were, but I’m searching for those unexpected images that arise from nowhere to define
the nature of my life and remind me who I am. My father was a painter, a real painter who worked in oils. When I was a boy,
no more than six, he showed me how to draw human figures with ovals for head, torso, legs, and arms. But he died before the
next lesson, and so I never progressed; I draw as a man exactly as I did as a boy.
But the hunger lingers in me, so I must content myself with what I can do. Long ago I gave up the idea of putting pigment
on canvas and began to paint the day itself, the air I breathe, which I discovered I could do. I can take the life that swirls
about me, bend and distort it to give it perspective, place it in a mental frame and carry it with me wherever I go. I can’t
say if it’s easier or harder than drawing on a sketch pad, but I have no choice; I’m driven to this place, this habitat, this
beach at Miramar, as surely as if I were a tern or a gull.
I have come to gather scenes—quiet scenes, turbulent scenes—that remain etched forever in my memory. In my own small way I
am waiting for what I love, waiting for love itself, watching carefully, awake to every possibility, for I have no idea what
will appear when I least expect it.
Here, at my feet, foam from the surf collects with the seaweed and blows across the beach in the gentle breeze like a serpent’s
beard. I gather the fluff in the cup of my hand and gaze into a globule of air, reflecting a world within a world. I burst
the bubble with my finger, and the world I saw a moment ago explodes. But I behold it still in my mind’s eye, a vivid image
of what once was, and so it’s as real to me now as it was before.
Where the dunes part, a couple emerges, pushing a three-wheeled buggy that holds a child. They pause in the middle of the
beach to do their warm-ups, bending knees, stretching hamstrings. When ready, they push the buggy onto the wet, compacted
sand and jog toward me. Heads down, eyes forward, they gain speed. They are serious runners; glancing neither to left nor
right, they run in unison: left leg, right leg, left leg, right. A raven rises over the dunes; a sea lion surfaces in the
breakers. They are unaware. But the child in the buggy swings his head back and forth from land to sea, from sea to land.
The child sees.
dollars in the sand
T
here are two ways to beachcomb, and both appeal to me. One is to scan the horizon, gazing over the breakers or down the misty
shore until indistinct shapes reveal themselves for what they are. The other is to stroll head down, searching for treasures
buried in the sun-bleached sand. I never know which impulse—to scan or to search—will sway me until I wander down to the edge
of the sea.
This morning I find myself in a searching mood, so I amble aimlessly, tending southward, gazing intently at the circle of
sand about my feet. I’m not sure how decisions as subtle as these are made, or if they’re made at all. Like a migrating bird,
I move by instinct, my behavior governed by forces beyond myself: the brightness of the sun, the angle of the wind, the running
of the tide. The elements mix their magic in my mind and my legs respond.
The outgoing tide has exposed a broad swath of wet sand. The sanderlings are here, feeding on the flats, their needle bills
probing for tiny mollusks and burrowing worms. Their legs are barely as long as my longest finger, yet they strut at twice
my speed. Were I to move at their pace, I would be miles down the shore by now.
The roaring breakers chase them up the beach; they chase the retreating surf down the beach. I marvel at how precisely attuned
they are to play their tireless game of tag with the surging sea. They seem to know intuitively how fast a wave will wash
across the sand. They run just rapidly enough to keep ahead of the foaming water as it rushes in—and follow it as it rolls
back out.
I feel a kinship with these birds, as if we are bound by a common purpose, despite the outward differences in the way we behave.
Their pace appears so frantic; mine so leisurely.They’re probing for food; I’m searching for the bounty washed in by the waves.
Who is to say that my quest is less crucial than theirs, or theirs more vital than mine?
When I arrived at Miramar, I wasn’t nearly as rich as I am today. All I had was my van, my clothes, my typewriter, my record
player, my unabridged dictionary, and a few favorite books. After years of accumulation, I had an irresistible urge to simplify,
to pare my possessions down to bare essentials, to tread as lightly, as freely as possible over the face of the land.
I also had a check, which, if converted to cash, might have filled a shoe box with twenty-dollar bills. That was a residue,
my fractional share of the substantial store of assets I had divided with my wife of thirty years under the terms of our divorce.
I had earned the money, but I didn’t need it. She hadn’t earned the money, but she did need it. From those contrary stances,
approaches to life as much as bargaining positions, we forged an agreement. She acquired financial security; I purchased my
freedom, which was more precious to me than breath itself.
My friends and counselors were dismayed. “Don’t be so hasty!” they said. “The day will come when you’ll wish you had the money
you gave to her.”
They meant well, as friends so often do, but I felt then, and I’m certain now, that their advice was founded on the mistaken
assumption that money is a solid, which, once relinquished, can never be regained. But money isn’t a solid; it’s a fluid,
like water. The cupful I spill over one side of the ship, I scoop up again on the other side.
I left my marriage exactly as I entered it three decades earlier. I had no mortgage, no credit-card balances, no bank loans.
What I did have, somewhere in the middle of my mind, was a gyroscope, pointing me in a direction, telling me where I had to
go. I set out, driving through snow-covered cornfields and prairie, crossing the Continental Divide, going from one coast
to the other in quest of a place that felt like home.
And now I am here, walking the beach, watching the fist-sized shorebirds as they feed. They have no cache, no hoard, no store;
like me, they live by their wits, taking what they want from the sea.
How is it, I ask myself, that I have so little money, yet I live so well?
I know the answer even before the question has filtered through my brain. It lies, in part, in what I have shed, the material
encumbrances of life that once weighed me down, and, in part, in the useful objects I discover—the bric-a-brac, the artifacts,
the relics, the castaway bits and pieces of civilization—as I comb the sand. A glass bottle with a narrow neck serves as a
vase, and a stiff canvas sail—a remnant from a schooner dashed against the offshore rocks—makes an awing over my sunbaked
deck.
What mystifies me most is the way the sea anticipates my needs. Once I stumbled upon a teak chest that some wealthy yachtsman
probably ripped from his cabin and tossed overboard as he sailed by. I don’t believe he intended it for me, but the sea, in
its infinite wisdom, knew my stereo was sitting on the floor. I dragged it to my beach house, washed it off, dried it out,
and now it anchors a corner of my living room. My turntable rests on top, my records on the sturdy shelves below, and every
morning at breakfast I have a concerto with my scrambled eggs.
A vast kelp bed lies a hundred yards off the beach; the sea grass breaks loose and collects in clumps along the shore. Sand
fleas hop about the tangled mass, which I skirt for fear these scavengers will leap into my rolled-up pants and feast on me.
I veer closer to the water’s edge; the surf splashes over my legs as high as my thighs, and as it draws away, I see a chalk
white disk in the sand.
It’s a sand dollar. I lay it flat in my palm and study its distinctive engraving: five petals, which remind me that this isn’t
a living creature, but a skeleton. The petals are fossil imprints of its breathing tubes. But the flower is so exquisitely
etched on its convex surface that it might be the lithotint of a master artist, a symphony on stone.
I uncover a second and third, gleaming in the sand, each smaller than the one before. In descending order, they seem to me
like a fifty-cent piece and a quarter—although my local bank places no value on them in its current rate of exchange. I spread
all three across my open hand and study them one at a time. On the smallest I detect traces of lavender-gray spines that flowed
in the ocean current like a field of grass in the wind when it was still alive.