A quiet revelation, revisited

Of all the entries I wrote at Open Diary , the one I am re-posting below is the one I remember most. For some strange reason. It’s not my best entry. It’s not the most profound, but the whole experience that day just moved me in a very deep and profound way. I cannot describe it other than to let you read it and decide for yourself.

It was written and posted at Open Diary back in January 2002, almost 18 years ago and, most appropriately, it takes place at Folly Beach, the setting of so many of my entries over the years. And for good reason. It is the one place where I am most grounded in my past and present. Our family went there for summer vacations since 1964. My aunt had a dearly loved beach cottage which was filled with countless happy memories. It’s one of those places where I have felt most alive and connected to the universe, and yet also where I have felt most desolate and lonely at times in the past. It is a paradoxical place, and, fittingly it is the one geographic and spiritual locale that seems to tie all the disparate strands of my life together.

Many of you who read my diary were not here at OD when I wrote this, so that is another reason I want to share this. And because I’m so many ways it is a winter piece of writing, as you will see.

Quiet Revelation
(Written Jan. 10, 2002)

There was something very strange and exhilarating about the beach this past Sunday. It was just a day or so after the winter storm that brought sleet and snow to our area. A time of colliding weather systems. The wind had been picking up all morning, and by afteronoon it was blowing hard, bending over trees outside my window with ease, tosing them back and forth. I love everything about this kind of wind: the energy, the restlessness, the sense of excitement it causes. The wind stirs something deep in my soul. It picks me up and carries me along with it, even if I am standing still looking up at the sky, or quietly gazing at it from inside my apartment.

So I drove to Folly Beach, all bundled up, and walked out to the edge of the ocean. It was quite a sight. The waves were being whipped up like some tropical storm was approaching. Great big waves breaking far out from the shoreline, misting, foaming in the choppy seas. How can I describe it? There was something elemental about it. Angry, pounding, relentless. Majestic. It reminded me of scenes of the California coast where you see the waves crashing and breaking up on huge rocks, boulders and outcropping of granite.

As I was coming back from a short walk, I saw an object in the near distance that looked like some bird or animal in the sand. I approached slowly and saw the most remarkable sight, one that I will long remember. Not that it was extraordinary in and of itself, but rather, for what it caused me to think about and ponder, and also, something else.

To my great surprise, it was a dead pelican, long, light brown feathers rustling in that wind. He couldn’t have been there long. The tide was coming in, and soon he would be washed out to sea. What caught my attention was the position. It was as if he had known his last moments in the sky and wind were about over. He came to rest in the sand, webbed feet under his body and sticking out. And, in dying, he shielded himself. His head and distinctive beak, so long and instantly recognizable, were hard to see for they were tucked under his protective wing. He was covering himself.

I stared in amazement at the sight. It affected me in a very unusual way that is difficult to explain. For many years I have marveled at the sight of these great birds flying overhead, several hundred feet or less about the shoreliine, usually in v-formations of anywhere from 10-50 birds, grace personified, floating on air in unison when the six-foot beating wings stopped flapping and the entire airborne flotilla floated on thermals and air currents, a perfectly synchronized, aerodynamic wonder and delight to behold up there in the sky.

So it was a shock to see one of those grand creatures lifeless in the sand, wind sweeping low over its final resting spot. In fact, if it were not for the tide cming in, that pelican would soon have been completed covered by the drifting sand that was racing across the beach.

I felt like I should soon leave even though I wanted to stay a little longer. I kept my distance. I didn’t want to disturb him in any way. I had never seen one of those birds up close.

I left shortly afterwards, walking farther up the beach to the path through the dunes. I turned around to observe a couple with a dog stopping to look at the sight that had so mesmerized me moments before. I watched with disbelief as the man thoughtlessly dislodged the great bird from his resting place with his foot, moving the body so that the head became visible from beneath the wing. They stayed just a few seconds, gaping at the dead bird. Then they left with hardly a second thought, I am sure.

I went back, somewhat reluctantly, and looked at the creature, disturbed in its rest, head exposed to the harsh and cold wind, and I felt very saddened. The man had treated it like just another piece of trash or detritus on the beach. I looked at the dead bird’s face and said I was sorry for the man’s actions. I was truly disturbed that the pelican had been so roughly mistreated, although the man and women would have probably thought me quite strange to have been upset.

I really knew, for a few fleeting moments, and almost for the first time, actually, what the native Americans knew and recorded in their stories of the birds and animals they shared the earth with. They were life. They were sacred, they had sprits that animated and breathed life into them. And when they died, their spirits departed. I know I am not relating this as well as I could, and I don’t know a lot about it, but I do know what I felt that afternoon a few days ago, and it was a revelation.