I heard the sea breathe, inhaling and exhaling on the shore. The smell of seaweed and salt water and wood smoke permeated the air. Seagulls call calling along the shoreline picked at the beached fish and crabs. I scampered down the craggy boulders that make the seawall with my cousins, my sisters, and our dogs, and jumped onto the smooth dry sand. Along the beach lay driftwood, bleached of its life by the salt and sea and sun leaving skeletal dryness of may odd shapes and sizes. I picked through the driftwood until I found one that suited me, one with a gnarled wizards handle.
I dragged the driftwood along the firm wet sand, and wrote my name and "Peace on Earth" in large girlish letters to be seen by the air plane flying overhead and the man in the moon. I pressed my foot in the wet sand making a foot print to catch the sea water that whirls around my feet and bubbles and tingles around my toes. I watch until the foot prints and writing are no longer visible from the breathing waves.
The dog a cocker poodle mix, ran wildly down the shore giving chase to the seagulls, but never too close to its quarry of crab and star fish and the sea as it exhales and inhales. The dog jumped back as the ocean exhaled onto the shore running wildly in circles on the sand. The waves brought in the long green and yellow sea weed uprooted from the ocean depths. She curiously sniffed at the bulbous root end of the sea weed and bit into its hallow bitterness until it squirts salt water at her. Again, the dog jumps back and runs in circles. The dog then picked through the driftwood scattered along the sea wall and picked one bigger than herself, big enough to prove her might. She came toward me with her stick and then ran with it, dropped it and then stood over it protectively.
I waded along the shore to the tide pools stopped for star fish and sand dollars to take home. Sea anemones with their long tendrils thook in small unwary fish brought in by the tide. I giggled as the dog poked her nose into the anenome and felt its embrace. She yelped then barked and ran down the sand. Light and golden brown star fish clung to the rocks dining on mussels and the anenomes. Seagulls whirled overhead and dove into the tide pools to feast off the treasure there. The dog ran into the water and out of the water as if the ocean air breathed a life into her that invited unbounded energy. She continued to run up and down the shore as fast as the wind and the inhaling and exhaling sea could carry her.
