Friday, February 5, 2010

On the nature of storms & stormy times



On a recent morning I took a walk down a favorite beach in Oceanside, just after a week of torrential rains soaked Southern California. Eroded by pouring rains and pounding seas, the beach was hardly recognizable as the wonderland on which my grandkids frolicked and in which they buried each other mere months ago.

A few intrepid surfers bobbed offshore, ignoring the cloudy skies and relishing the hefty swells. A handful of joggers pounded the well-packed sand near the waterline. Two older men with rolled-up pant legs and metal detectors walked side-by-side, searching for treasure and sending the shorebirds scurrying.

Constant battering by the waves had interrupted the beach’s normal gradual descent to ocean with a sand ridge high enough to sit upon. Great mounds of seaweed had washed ashore, intermixed with all manner of flotsam and jetsam coughed up by the sea.

A couple of soggy tennis balls. Lots of plastic containers and bottle caps. A light bulb. Old sneakers and flip-flops. Some PVC pipe. Dozens of beach toys, faded by sun and sea, gathered by beachcombers or sea sprites on a picnic table, ready for adoption.

Storms are part of nature and part of the nature of things. They are certain, cyclic and unavoidable. Seas get rough. Rain must fall and wind must blow. Damage is done. Pain is felt. The sea purges itself of things it neither wants nor needs.

But eventually the sun comes out. The ocean resumes its regular breathing. Flowers bloom and chicks are hatched. We pick up the pieces and healing begins. No doubt the beach will be back to postcard condition well before the first giggling beach angel shows up in the summertime.

There must be a metaphor here. Economic storms, political storms or whatever, followed invariably by fair weather, soft breezes and drinks with fruit slices and little umbrellas. But I’ll leave that part to you.

Oh, one more thing. I saw a rainbow over the ocean later that day.

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