I'm So Lucky

I think I felt a bit of inspiration after a glorious walk along our beach. Not ours personally but part of the beautiful state park that surrounds our place. Our beach is really a stretch of about two miles of high cliffs, micro-fjords and an occasional real beach of pebbles or sand laced above with huge old-growth trees and the remains of such vertical on the sand. Besides the mystic fog rolling in between bright beams of sunlight, I saw the migration of a herd of . . . tourists. They come from the big cities and the places far away. I knew they were here, not by the honking overhead or the snorting of their snouts but the huge road jam coming onto our island on Friday evening.

But as I hiked and I watched the strangers snapping photos left and right, smiling, wowing I felt good. I crossed a small meadow near where my trail starts up another forested cliff-edge only to see a flock of camera-laden people motion for me to stop. I was puzzled. Then I noticed that they were watching Jake, or Bud or Rick . . . one of the many bald eagles who live in the park and are always perched in that tree. To the out-of-towners it was a great novelty. They acted like the very spot should be cordoned-off or turned into a spontaneous protected aviary. “But those birds are always there,” I thought. If you couldn’t hike the trail beneath them where they are present, then they would have to close the trail forever. So I hiked on under the tree and their perch. The people signed like I was an anti-nature jerk. “But I live here!” I thought, almost with real words.

Toward the end of the first segment of my trail, after riding the steep walls above the sea like a Coney Island roller coaster I entered a campground. It was a sad scene—people packing the back of their cars with their stuff. I could see the sadness. The kids were walking down to the mystic beach for one more look. “I live here!” Came the thought again. I never have to pack up and go home for I am there. I can walk on this beach every morning, every night seven days a week if I want. I felt really lucky.