Week #3: Creative Writing Challenge – Beach Ramblings

You’ve quit your job to live out the rest of your days on your favorite beach. Describe your new way of life and mentality as a literal beach bum.

I arrive each morning 
to feel the cold wind in my face, whipping my hair to mirror the crashing waves
Shoes are abandoned to the dunes
Toes play in breathtakingly frigid water
Waves erode wet sand, making divots, holding me in place
Always changing, and always dependably permanent

I arrive each morning
to see kelp embracing whole communities protected in slime
At the high tide line, tangled webs release the decaying smell of life
Toes pop floats as I walk that wandering edge
knowing the next tide will move it towards water and life, or forsake it higher toward the dunes
Always changing, and always dependably permanent

I arrive each morning
to count the unoccupied homes of long dead molluscs and gastropods
Precisely drilled holes, chipped edges the only evidence of their last
Toes uncover brilliant shells and crack the fragile ones
beginning the fabrication of more sand
Always changing, and always dependably permanent

I arrive each morning
to observe the changing of the seasons
The whales arrive in winter, migrating birds in spring and fall, and fog to mask it all during summer
Toes dig into sand and pebbles, and traverse rocks when the others have vanished
As the currents deposit and remove sand from the coast
Always changing, and always dependably permanent

I arrive each morning
to contemplate life
knowing the permanence and impermanence of this place, of being
Toes carry me forward, always forward
To experience being present in a world that is
Always changing, and always dependably permanent

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