Wednesday 5:55 am
It’s morning, it’s early, but I did it. At the first hint of blush in the sky I plan to head to the beach, especially because I can hear someone coughing and rooting around downstairs. Another sunrise. And before that, a crescent moon.
. . .
It is a different sunrise today, a round yellow white orb rising rapidly over the sparkling sand. The crabs scamper in the sun’s path, sand glinting like large chunks of wet gold where the light hits it just so. The moon soaked froth of the early hours has given way to a wide molten smear that stretches from my towel wrapped feet down the beach and straight out for a million miles.
I have just learned that 1.3 million earths would fit into the sun. A giant nuclear furnace indeed.
When my eyes relax and I hold my body still I become aware of the moving tapestry of sand colored creatures. Every few moments a fresh twitch and then after a few sprays of sand, a tiny avalanche, peeps a crab from his hold. They are constantly firing off, as if listening to some larger orchestration, stage managed by the sun. But when I’m still I can see the tiny spurts and surges of crab life across what, from their perspective, must look like the vast Sahara. One, the size of my palm, has been at work for an hour, gleefully spitting sand, dancing in and out of his hole just past the high tide line. Others are the size of my thumb – one of these emerges inches from my beach towel to survey the morning sideways. The large one now chases a smaller across the flatter sands.
If the Eskimo people have many words for snow, why do we not differentiate the sand? There is sand in the sea, at water’s edge, smooth sand, loose sand, pre-sand at the wave’s border that is pebbly and slurps your feet down, the sand that sticks to you wet, the sand you leave on the floor, the sand at the bottom of the tub. Also the sand in your bed, and the sand in your teeth.
