Twelve Mile Trek on the Beach

We keep extending the distance of our walks from Slaughter Beach south to Prime Hook Beach.  We walked almost 12 miles yesterday in weather that reached into the low 70's.  We started first thing in the morning, wanting to enjoy this day to the fullest.  There was a possibility of rain but who cares?  We just geared up for it. 

A warm morning with a dramatic sky,
an outbound tide and the contrast
  of the fat, red buoy floating just offshore.

As we walk the miles, my feet sink in an inch or two, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on where on the beach we walk and how firmly the sand is packed.  I was curious about the science of this and looked it up on the internet. The first thing I found was "What Makes Sand Soft?" a New York Times article by Randall Monroe published November 9l, 2020.  Turns out, the answer lies in a field of physics that is still evolving (as if any field of physics could ever be finite).  There's so much not yet known about how the size, shape, strength and texture of grains of sand affect other factors such as firmness under our feet.  And, of course, moisture overlays these factors as well. The softness of sand on the beach may be appreciated by sunbathers walking barefoot or stretched out prone on a towel. But for us, firm sand is good though I admit, soft sand gives us a better workout.  We feel the effort of all those small muscles and tendons during long walks.  But the more we do it the less post walk pain we feel.   

With the tide out we see just a little of "what lies below".
I love it.

Our walks on the beach are always an out and back thing, a linear trail defined thus by a large body of water on one side and sand dunes, marshland or human boundaries often on the others.  The walk out never seems long even as we press further and further south, exploring, experiencing.  For me, I guess it's the anticipation. Looking forward to the newness of any given day on the beach and the differing views all around, the birds, the animal tracks, and all the interesting things washed up on the beach keep the walk feeling like a great sightseeing tour or a science class, a great tease of the brain and sensory existence. 

In fact, there is so much to see on any given walk that I often don't even know where to look and have to make myself slow down yet make myself look up and around, give all aspects of the journey a good appreciation.  I go back and forth between studying what's in and on the sand, to watching birds, the ships anchored or moving offshore, planes, especially the huge seemingly slow movers out of Dover Air Force Base, changing clouds or the subtle changing shade of a clear blue sky, swaying blades of the beach grasses in the dunes, the wave action... Like one of my favorite John Burroughs quotes, "To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday."  This is true for any walk in nature but even more obvious along a beach.  

Crossing from Slaughter Beach
to the beach fronting the
Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.
This view evokes for me pictorial images of wartime. 
I much prefer this one. 

Psychologically, the return walk back on a beach walk always seems a bit longer even though we still find things we missed on the way out and all around us the details of the scenery are still changing. I think it really only seems longer because we are digging deeper into the sand with our extra few pounds of weight caused by carrying our beach booty.  That, combined sometimes with the warmth of the rising temperature during the day, can make for a slightly more challenging walk. We can go out cold in the morning, layered up for wind or forecasted rain and come back with an outer layer or two tied around our waists, draped around our necks, drooped over an arm or stuffed in bags and sweating. 

Our normal beach trek goes like this:  Outbound, we pick up goodies that are small, or larger ones that we are afraid we might miss on our way back. We usually don't have to worry about other beachcombers snagging all the booty. This would be a worry, I guess, for groomed beaches in the summer.  There aren't that many other beachcombers out in the winter on the non-touristy beaches that we prefer.  On our walks back to our vehicle we pick up trash and always have to be somewhat selective even though we contemplated the wisdom of rolling back a huge plastic drum once.  Normally we bring back smaller items, things that can get swallowed up by sea life and end up compromising the circle of life. The exercise involved in bending over to snag trash is a nice counter to walking. And sometimes that bending over act involves digging and dragging and unraveling and pulling off nature's globs of tangled grasses wrapped and grown around fishing wire or ribbons or whatever.  It is always a great or not-so-great adventure in trash collecting.  But the bending over stretches out our backs a bit.  

We have unusual sculptures that were beach finds - 
ladies shoe bottom alongside two empty fuel canisters,
weathered from the water and sun. 

An exception to picking up trash on the return trek is if the trash is something we find interesting that could be upcycled into some kind of sculpture, or even as a stand alone sculpture such as the bottom of a woman's high healed shoe and two empty fuel canisters all weathered from water and sun.  

One of the most common category of trash we collect, and that fortunately is not heavy, is the mylar balloon and accompanying ribbon.  Unfortunately they tangle up inside and outside the bodies of sea life.  We've also seen and heard tales of raptors trying to use them in nests and getting tangled up needing assistance from the local fire department. I admit I used to love mylar balloons and when I was much younger I would let them go, rising up into the sky and wondering where they might float off to. I was not a hiker then, not a wanderer and not as tuned into the crisis in our environment.  But I am now and now I know where those mylar balloons go to die and often to take critters with them.  It's not a romantic speculation anymore. In our years of hiking we find them in the most remote areas, tangled in trees 100 feet off the ground, on the ground in the woods, on the beaches. I remember the first time the color of a mylar balloon caused me to pull out my binoculars thinking there might be a brightly colored bird in a distance. Now I'm more suspect. On any given walk anywhere we are bound to find at least one. Our last walk on the beach yielded at least half a dozen which on a beach is not atypical. Some of these balloons were relatively fresh from Valentine's Day.  As much as I despair about all the mylar balloons released in the wild I can't help but also wonder and imagine stories about who might have purchased them and who received the "temporary gift" and who released them into the wilds.  Those actions were probably well meaning. The actors did not know or really think through the results of this seemingly ethereal but ironic act of littering. But before I judge too harshly, I recall a Malcom X quote that resonated with me in a lot of ways but also as pertains to these seemingly happy, harmless mylar balloons released into nature:  "Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast.  There was a time when you didn't know what you know today."

Sea glass and other small treasures are picked up whenever we see them.  Other finds include smallish rocks that are interesting due to striations, color or shape, pieces of drift wood, shells and weird items of trash. 

With each mile and the accumulating ounces to pounds of beach finds I sink into the sand more and my body works harder for each step.  My hands get sore from carrying bags of shells and a couple times I've made my jacket into a modified backpack, swearing that I'll actually start wearing an empty backpack just for this purpose. 

I collect shells only if they are empty of life.  They include channeled and knobbed whelk, oyster drills which look like miniature whelks, oyster shells, occasionally angel wings, shark eye shells, jingle shells, blue mussel shells, bay scallops, periwinkles, all the typical Delaware beach shells. I pick them up if they have interesting colors, or maybe nice vintage (weathered) look.  I've been collecting a lot of whelks to use wired in drapey clumps with my handmade bows for outdoor holiday decorations or as a kind of trellis under our deck in the back yard.  Also, I've turned pretty, sea-worn flat oyster shells into necklaces.  

I have lots of booty, not just from beach walks in Delaware but also from walks all over in our travels and from running roads and trails and streets.  Stopping to examine "road kill" is something we do, and even if we are driving, we often will make a U-turn or go around the block or take an exit to come about and pull over to retrieve someone's trash, whether it was something tossed or something lost. 

Magpie!

Walking the Wrack Lines

Since we moved to Delmarva we've been exploring beaches.  We got lucky and moved to an area close to several non-touristy beaches such as Bowers, Big Stone, Slaughter, and Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.  

We check the tide charts and try to head out at or near low tide making sure to consciously note whether the stretch of beach we are on will still be there if the tide is rolling back in. We often walk for miles.  Our longest walk so far this year has been just over nine miles out and back.  

Its been sad but interesting and even amazing to watch the tremendous beach erosion and how the beach-side residents and state employees try to maintain the properties and beach access.  It looks like they are losing, frankly.  These beaches we walk are mostly in the Delaware Bay tucked just inside from the Atlantic Ocean but the ocean is relentless and the bay is bigger than it looks on most maps. There is the daily sea rise that is seemingly transparent but then there are the low pressure systems and when combined with strong onshore winds it can exacerbate high tides or even seem to dismiss a low tide.  There doesn't have to be a huge storm it seems, to pull huge chunks of the beach away.  I was unaware of that until moving here.  We used to live on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay, in Maryland, and had a 30 foot Bayliner in the Magothy River, and before that, we had the boat in the Anchorage Marina in Baltimore. We were out in the boat a lot. But like many pleasure boaters and with working full time we didn't delve all that deeply into NOAA issues.  Not that I am now, but I'm ticking my toes in the water, so to speak, just a tad bit more as I learn about our area.  

I've found some really interesting things on the beaches.  Near Ocean City a year ago I found a small, dead seahorse, frozen solid, lost in the detritus of the wrack line. 

Another time, just recently on Slaughter Beach, we found a juvenile snow goose alone on the beach.  It looked like it was shivering.  It would flap it's wings but couldn't seem to take off.  We'd seen huge flocks of them moving across the Delaware Bay and in the surrounding farm fields and wetlands.  A state employee with a big earth mover working the lost beach issue told us it had been shot.  We hadn't noticed the small greenish spot just behind the left wing.  It's hunting season for them and the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge allows hunting.  The gentleman was nice.  He said the snow geese are tough and sometimes they can recover after having been shot.  As I said, he was being nice.  We'd been contemplating whether we should try to pick it up and take it to some wildlife rehabilitation place.  We had very little cell phone coverage on Slaughter Beach so we couldn't find a number to call.  Of course, learning it'd been shot kind of changed our assessment of whether anyone would help.  

You just never know what views or adventure awaits you when walking on the beach, especially one that is not groomed for sunbathing tourists.  We find different things everyday, washed ashore, both manmade and nature's goods.  The sky is different each time with the coloration changing with clouds or fog and lighting.  Birds and other critters vary with the time of day and season and our luck.  The breeze is always different as are the waves and the sounds.  The view is always spectacular.  

I love taking in the air, breathing deeply and feeling happy and content to have the opportunity to be there.    

Lookout Wild Film Festival

We just got back a couple days ago from Chattanooga where we attended the Lookout Wild Film Festival (LWFF).  It was iffy on whether they would hold it in person or go virtual.  They postponed it from the initial date in January.  Last year they held it over several weekends in the summer outdoors in a public park.  This was the tenth year.  We attended in 2020 right before the pandemic kicked in and when we were still living in across the border in rural North Carolina.  

We travel at least half the year and lived on the road with no house, no basecamp, for about five years.  When people ask us where we liked visiting the most it used to confound me because nothing jumped out.  I thought about it and realized it was serendipity that determined our favorites.  It was in meeting certain people, getting lucky with being in the right place at the right time, attending events, volunteer gigs, seeing unusual wildlife (albino deer, and squirrels).  Even though we found out about the LWFF when we were living in a cabin (our base camp) in the Southern Appalachians and had sold our 38 foot fifth wheel and bought a slide-in camper, it is still one of the best experiences we've come across in our adventures.  

We moved to the Mid-Atlantic from the Southern Appalachians in February last year or we'd have attended the weekend showings of the  2021 LWFF in Chattanooga.  This year we were watching the weather, prepping to drive.  We looked over campgrounds and also discussed the possibility of stealth camping or National Forest camping with no amenities.  We have a generator.  Sleeping in a camper is always more cushy than in a tent on the ground so even if we couldn't use water due to cold, it was still a possibility.  We could wash up each day using the gallon jugs of water I take when we travel in the winter.  But we opted for three nights in a campground with a shower house.  

On the way to Chattanooga we dodged the weather.  The fastest way there would have been through DC and down the Appalachians on I-81 to I-40 to I-75 but a storm of freezing rain or snow was coming northeast up the range so we went the long way, due south then cutting west and circling through Atlanta before vectoring to Chattanooga.  We drove a fish hook, basically.  It added a few more hours but we didn't have to worry about being in the mountains in snow, sleet, heavy rain, black ice. And we made sure we had time to negotiate nature.  On route, we stayed a night behind a Cracker Barrel in Greenville, South Carolina.  We had left on Thursday to give us all day to drive, plus all day Friday since the film fest didn't start until Friday evening.  Breakfast Friday morning was, of course, at the Cracker Barrel and I also bought a Harry Potter puzzle for my daughter, the Harry Potter fan (but really, who isn't, it seems?), and a little yellow rain slicker, size 2T for our newest grandson, from their always fun gift shop. 

We stayed at the Chester Frost Park campground in Hixson, Tennessee.  I'd researched campgrounds before we came and this one had the right price (less than $30 a night with electric), bathrooms and showers that were rated decently, and beautiful views of the Chickamauga Lake.  I love me some good sunrises.  It was cold each night, dipping below 30, but we had heat.  The campground was quiet and not overly lighted.  We chose our spot right in front of the bath facilities, being practical.  We fly on the cheap.  If we were fussier and had a bigger budget we'd have stayed a a nice hotel in downtown Chattanooga.  But we live small and are cheap about certain things.  But we are free.  We don't work and haven't for ten years now.  

We attended all five sessions of the LWFF to include the time lapse films Saturday and Sunday that start at 12:30.  I love the photography, the scenery that the filmmakers chose for these.  I sit there like a happy child and take it all in.  The only film we didn't attend was probably their feature film, The Alpinist, on Saturday night, but we'd very recently seen it - and thought it was great - but just didn't want to sit thought we'd get back to our campground, get a good sleep and go exploring Sunday morning.  

We had many favorite films.  I love the diversity of the choices made by the selection committee. I actually started my favorites but ended up with almost all of them and felt bad about leaving out the few others because I liked them too and they all had their place in this festival.  I am so happy to see films about diverse people in nature, having adventures, and films about non-white people, disabled people and people from other countries. I love that we had some political/environmental topics too though some people may get edgy about that.  It's part of the world we live in and frankly, has always been. Let's examine it in a respectful way, I say, and apparently LWFF is also doing that.  

In 2020 when we attended the LWFF there were several things going on in the lobby of the Tivoli, a beautiful vintage theater and part of the fun of the LWFF.  What sticks out in my mind the most is the free s'mores buffet.  Who'd have ever thought of that?  Well whoever did think of it, I bow in reverence.  It was one of the best foodie experiences I've ever had.  To have all that melted goo in a bowl was just disgustingly wonderful.  This year things were paired down due to covid.  That's OK.  I appreciate when events and groups are paying attention to public health and science.  

We hope to join the movie selection committee for future festivals.  Now that we have high speed internet in Delaware, we should be able to screen submissions.  When we were in our cabin in the Southern Appalachians we only had our hotspot wifi's and even at that we had to go to the second floor and often play with the device, orienting it this way and that and even going out on the deck with it if it wasn't cold or raining.  Sometimes we went into town to the library or a coffee shop or even rented a hotel room to watch campaign debates, sports, or to take Red Cross volunteer courses on-line.  Now we can sit in comfort in our "base camp" home in Delaware.  

Thinking About My Mother

My mother has been in a nursing home for a couple of years now due to strokes and Lewy Body Dementia which is not like other dementias in that her memory doesn't disappear from most recent and go backwards in time and there are some hallucinatory kinds of experiences and rearrangements of time and circumstance.  

The nursing home caregivers are doing doll therapy with Mom.  It seems to keep her focused and I assume, less lonely, less agitated.  It gives her a sense of responsibility and control.  She raised seven kids and took care of many grandkids over the years.  She was proud to take care of her grandkids, to be able to help her kids in that way.  

The way Mom responds with the "baby" is interesting.  Though few family members of the dozens that live within ten miles of her visit her, those that have have been upset seeing her with the "baby" even though they've been warned.  One thinks it's funny and rather than understanding that she sees the baby as a grandchild, he remarked with dumb humor that we have another sibling. 

I live several states away from Mom but do weekly video calls with her, facilitated by the nursing home which I am so very grateful for.  I try to visit her every three months which hasn't happened on schedule due to the pandemic and lockdowns.  I write to Mom almost every day.  

Mom has hearing issues and doesn't always wear the one hearing aid I guess she still haves though I don't know the history of that since I thought she lost both of them a couple of years ago.  That, coupled with the dementia and maybe a life long predilection towards a slightly slower comprehension when communication is verbal and out of context from what is expected makes communication with her a bit more difficult.  

Communication with Mom requires patience and simplicity, a focus on her and adaptation to how she perceives and responds.  Some people think you just have to talk slower or louder or baby-like.  That's not the simplicity I mean.  

Like me, Mom seems to process and recall information better when she sees it such as the written word.  Fortunately she can still read pretty well though the writing has to be clear and neat and of course, large enough.  When I write to her I don't use cursive anymore.  Hell, I can't decipher my own cursive scribble after a paragraph or two.  My hand can't keep up with my brain.  But printing each letter forces me to slow down.  But even my printed words have to be neat, I've learned.  For instance, one time when I was on a video call with Mom she read one of my letters to me and got to the end and said, "Huh, this one is from Jan P".  Actually, rather than be upset about that, and focusing on another loss, it made me laugh to myself.  Humor helps us cope with this journey.  

Each day now when I write a letter (and for at least two years now I finish with each one with "I love you Mom")  I sign it "Love, Jane" but as I do that I say out loud to myself, "Jan P" as I print out J A N E.  The joke will be on me if I start actually writing Jan P since I know that sometimes our hands, as with the rest of our body, follow through with what the brain is thinking. 

What I have found works nicely with Mom on the video calls and in person is to mostly be quiet and let her talk, even through the silences.  She doesn't seem to notice the silences as awkward in the way we might.  That's our own head space of anxiety wanting to yap constantly and our discomfort in dealing with someone who has changed so significantly, spelling loss for us and grief.  I agree that it is hard to watch people we know and love have their live diminished before our eyes.  More on that later.  With the silences, I just wait, confident now that more will come from Mom.  I find if I wait for it, additional thoughts get verbalized by Mom.  I respond with simple things, trying to keep to what she may expect so it stays in context for her.  For instance, if she asks an open ended question such as "What's going on with you lately?" I answer, "Not much"  or "Staying busy".  

This whole communication process with Mom, which is so changed from what I knew for most of our lives, hers and mine, could provoke so much internal focus on grief and loss.  I nod to that. I give it it's due. It is true.  Mom is 88 and has lost her independence and much of her ability to comprehend.  She has many physical limitations to include the inability to use the bathroom safely alone or getting her hair fixed the way she wore it for 50 years.  But I think there is still a rich journey here with Mom that I am grateful to be on with her.  I am unafraid, fascinated and so glad she is getting good care, is not alone, and is not in pain.  In fact, she is pretty chipper and shows much of her lifelong sense of humor which is sometimes blunt and cutting, making things interesting and unpredictable with her dementia and diminished hearing.  

I have learned so much more about my mother, about what is important to her, things that happened in her life that I never gave that much thought to being her child and always in the receiving and needy mode as we tend to do with our parents. Even as adults, we still have kind of the unwritten rule, the expectation, that our needs are more important than our parents, that they have to take care of us.  I think that is why so many adult children and adult grandchildren don't visit elderly and partially incapacitated loved ones.  Whether conscious or unconscious, I think they just can't focus outwards, be curious. 

I feel as if I have now discovered some of the depths of the person that Mom is, things that you don't see growing up with a parent.  I feel these moments with her often produce rare gifts for me.  I've always been in the position of visiting her, calling or writing over the years since I left "home" for college and jobs. When Mom was put in a nursing home against her will, I started the visits, the calls, the writing, wanting to give her company and comfort, wanting her to know she is appreciated and not forgotten. But as her child, and as I have discovered, I am still receiving things from her. that I think of as gifts. These things have transcended the usual, the gifts we children are accustomed to receiving.  How do I really describe this journey?  In a way, I feel we are into the PhD realm of child-parent relationships, if you will.  I am getting glimpses into the human being that is more than what I previously knew of my mother.  I am learning things that were, that are, important to her that I never fully appreciated, never really heard about.