Daily inspiration

I left the house with thoughts of reading, I'd already done some writing because I'd woken up early and didn't feel like eating. Grabbed a play, a book on pilgrimage (in general), and a book written about Greece.  I looked up a poem before I left, thought maybe it could inspire the rest of my day...a Greek poet.  C.V. Cavafy.  I think he was writing in the early 1900's, but not positive.  Poem is called "Ithaka."  Something I take along when I travel. You can read it here. (I don't want to defy copyright laws.) http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?cat=1&id=74

Caught a bus to one of my other favorite coffee shops because they used to serve Mate, though I found they no longer do, so I drank green tea instead and started reading, "Dinner with Persephone" by Patricia Storace, an American poet, about her year living in Greece. The prose is evocative, really enjoyed her invitation into that world.  Only read one chapter because I am still distracted, even though the coffee shop wasn't particularly busy.  Women with strollers.  A language student and tutor.  An older couple speaking an Eastern European language.  The girl next to me with a stroller, seeming too young to have a child.  She sits cross-legged on the bench and writes in a small red journal, then later starts an art project, all the while rocking the stroller, and listening to music on her iPod.  The whir of a fan, the steamer, the rattling of porcelain and silverware, and the sound of jazz, compete for my attention.  The book makes me want to move, if only temporarily, to a foreign country.  To experience life with open eyes because everything is foreign, everything is new.  But I'm restless.  I close the book and get up and walk to the beach.  It's my natural history day.

The beach is empty now that the summer season has ended.  I walk in a direction I don't usually go.  Looking at a familiar landscape from a different viewpoint than I usually do.  The tide is high.  It's overcast and a little cold.  I crawl in the sand on my knees to get a different view of things, to take pictures.  When I sit to write, a bird I've never seen before shows up and starts foraging in the dune grasses.  I observe it for half and hour.  It doesn't mind me, but when someone starts flying a kite nearby, it cowers with every pass and swoosh of the kite.  I look at graffiti left on rocks, and imagine it as petroglyphs left for future generations to find and try to decipher, what messages were left to follow?  What do we want to be remembered for?

The tide retreats and I look to see what it left in it's wake.  Holdfasts for kelp.  Broken strands of seaweed.  Empty shells.  The sound of tumbling rocks and the unexpected roar of waves.

The clouds dissipate and it gets hot.  People arrive, populate the lonely expanse of sand.  And I leave.  It was almost four hours of wandering.

Some pictures.

Glyph-like, September 3/L Herlevi 2014

Almost empty, September 3/L Herlevi 2014

Crawling, Sept 3/L Herlevi 2014

Later, Sept 3/L Herlevi 2014

Turtles and a duck, Sept 3/L Herlevi 2014