Wind, Waves and Water

 ... blackberries sitting in a thimble berry cup ...

I was late doing my 10,000 steps today. I was so late that I had 9,500 to go and it was already 5 pm, so I started the steps on the shady side of where Pillings Road connects to Bernie road. Near the end of my journey I could feel the wind in the trees and I wondered if the waves would be on the water. So Joan, Betty, Alice and I walked down to the beach, Betty pulling a small wagon and Alice skipping ahead until we had to stop for a train. We stopped to look at the wood that had been bucked up and is ready to go back up beside some house for winter. A couple of days ago I was walking down the same road and heard a chain saw ahead. I know enough to turn around and walk somewhere else if I heard the buzz of a saw.

The wind had already brought a tree down, a large one, and it fell across the road, just missing the trailer where the Wood Families store their life jackets. A blessed save. Alice and Betty ducked under the tree and I found a way around it, bypassing the Wood trailer and ducking under the still immature cherry tree. I sat at the water’s edge and watched Alice, now in a life jacket.

She was learning how to let the waves bob her back into shore. In a storm and at the water’s edge they grind a person right into the cement and make it impossible to stand up, one wave over-taking another. Baby Betty, barely two years old joined the fabulous fun but when the waves broke at her knees, she turned and ran back up the ramp. I loved the feel of the warm wind and of the waves breaking at the shoreline. I loved watching the two little girls learn about the power of the waves and the wind.

Alice also enjoying blackberries
eaten from a thimble berry cup.

The wind was still high as we walked up towards the houses. I could see the wings of fireweed seeds in the air as I looked up the channel of space between the trees that is the road. I took some fireweed stalks and gave them to the girls so they could fling them through the air and multiply the parachutes that were rising to the sky and then tumbling with the wind along the expanse of the road.

I stopped to pick some handfuls of blackberries.

Two times. Both going down to the lake and coming back up.

I only have to touch the vine and the berries fall into my hands – so sweet.  I wondered if I will pick enough to make jam.

By the time I got to the stairs my fitbit was buzzing on my arm: 10,000 steps.

The finish to a lovely hour of wind, waves and water.

Arta