Nirvana (-ish)

pelican

This morning. (And not Fake News, mostly.)

Sleep in till 7:45 am. Wow. Let’s do that again, and again, and again.

Read the morning papers. Read a few chapters of Patricia Hampl’s new book: The Art of the Wasted Day. And commit to workin’ on this Art today.

A heaping breakfast. Two-egg ham and cheese omelette. Bacon. Pork sausage links. Fresh cut fruit. Fresh baked pastries. And that would be plural on the pastries x 2. These same pastries were dipped in home made strawberry jam.

A short walk to the beach. Me and my breakfast hangover land heavily on the beach chair.

81º F.  Partly sunny. (Feels like 92 F.)  Warm winds @ 7 mph from the NE.

Miles of soft sand in both directions.

The Atlantic laps the shoreline.

Wispy clouds provide intermittent relief from the sun.

Out in the distance, hulking ocean freighters and their giant steel containers carry their cargo to ports away.

Pelicans, with their massive wing spans and beaks, cruise three feet off the ocean top, and plummet, splashing in search of breakfast. And they come again, and again and again — feeding. I look closely for a wing flap wondering how the maintain their locomotion. Can’t see it. Miracle. All of it.

Paragliders float up high, held aloft by giant multicolored rainbow parachutes.  Muffled sounds of jet skis in the distance.

Families and beach goers begin to arrive. Hundreds and hundreds fill the shoreline quietly and peacefully milling, settling, reading, playing, sleeping… children pull out their plastic shovels and pails out of Mom’s beach bag and start building castles…

My toes auger into the soft sand, dark and cool a few inches down.

And, oh yea, there’s a little of something else.

Boom Box. Three males. 20’s.

It’s now been 90 minutes, uninterrupted. Others glare at the boys and the boom box as they pass by.

Yet, there’s no sign of ear buds. No sign of volume reduction.

Just boom, boom, boom, boom.

“Rachel, what’s the song?”

“Eminem. Lose Yourself:”

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
Yo

If you had one shot, one moment, one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, would you capture it or just let it slip?

“May you please turn it down?”

“No?”

I tip my cap up, bite down on the end of my cigar:

“Go ahead Boys, make my Day.”


Photo: goodnessgraci0us with Showing Off

27 thoughts on “Nirvana (-ish)”

      1. I’m not going to do that to either of us! Maybe I’ll come in with something about one of the kooks who stops by to see the place.

  1. are you a cigar smoker David?
    this is SO sad, another love affair ruined…. 😉

    there is no perfection in life. but you had a great if not v. healthy start so let us be thankful for that

    wishing you and yours a glorious weekend/Sunday

    1. No cigars. No cigarettes. No coffee. But Clint Eastwood’s characters, where this line (Make my day) was lifted from, was a cigar chomping afficionado

      1. Did you hear the sigh of relief? Of course I had no idea of Clint Eastwood’s caracters whatsoever, so the mention was lost on me – pardon it on my being a gun-speared, Western untouched Swiss upbringing!

  2. it sounds like you and the pelicans were on the same breakfast plan, swooping in again and again….. ) enjoy every minute

  3. Guessing you are on your annual family pilgrimage to Miami…glad you have great weather & family time! We’d hope to travel to the shoreline next week, where we can walk along without seeing another soul, but our favorite accommodations are not available until the first week of May…it will be a perfect 80 degrees on Tuesday..Unfortunate you have to deal with.blasting music, hopeful those young guys well sleep until the afternoon, tomorrow!

  4. Yo, you guys should come to the better side of FL…whiter sand, bluer waters, peaceful, no freighters, plenty of birds and a very nice Sheraton Sand Key Resort just next to the salt marsh. Watch the ospreys, make your own day, yo. 🙂

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