Clean Slate

I wanted to use a photo of an impressive spider with a big blue butt that I took today for this post, but I was afraid of two things: 1) I might scare an unwary arachnophobic as they scrolled innocently through their Facebook feed, and 2) people might not come visit me at the beach if they know what is out there. To solve the first problem I have added the spider at the bottom of this post, so if you do not like spiders, refrain from scrolling down. As for the second problem, let me just assure everyone that I have been hanging out on this beach for about fifteen years and no spiders have harmed me as of yet (although a few may have been harmed by me if they ventured into the cottage).

Now for the photo of the beach. I think I have taken a few thousand pictures of this. This beach, those rocks, that sky, that ocean. In the snow, in the fog, in the sun and on cloudy days. I feel like the postal service of beach photos. And as I looked at this one I tried to understand why it is so appealing. There is the geometry of this shot, the horizon line between sky and water, beach and rocks. There is they way the ocean and the treed point echo each other. There are the contrasting textures: liquid ocean versus solid rocks, granular sand(ular) versus lofty air with puffy clouds. Then there are the sounds; can you hear the waves rolling in and the white-throated sparrows calling from the evergreens above? Can you feel the warm sand as it shifts under your bare feet and and the salty wind as it blows your hair into your face? Maybe it is all of that which encourages me to take a photo of this scene over and over again.

But I think there may be one thing more. This is a picture of possibilities. This is a picture of a clean slate. That expression, as you probably know, comes from the times before we recorded everything on an electronic device that stores our thoughts in "the cloud" someplace for ever and ever. A clean slate refers to the blackboard we used to use to record our ideas with chalk (incidentally made from exoskeletons of sea creatures from the Cretaceous period, but that is a story for another blog). With chalk and a blackboard we brainstormed our thoughts and then erased them and started anew. There is something attractively liberating in this. And a beach on the ocean is a similar slate. It is wiped clean twice a day by three meter tides. All of the old foot prints and four-wheeler tracks and detritus of the last half-day are smoothed away and we get to begin again. A fresh start.

For all of us finishing a school year as teachers or students, here is a metaphor for the summer: the beach is smooth and ready for new footprints. And for anyone who wants to see the spider with the big blue butt, just scroll down!