Skitter Ahead of the Waves

I am a product of the plains. Lived in the tree-less, ocean-less, mountain-less parts of the world my entire life. So it seems like we head for treed or mountained or oceaned parts of the world when we can.

This past week I’ve traveled to Maine and Florida. Definitely treed and oceaned places, and incredibly beautiful in different ways.

In Florida, I was walking along the ocean, watching the waves roll in and the shore birds grabbed my attention. They follow the waves out, quickly peck in the sand, and skitter back ahead of the waves as they return. They do this over and over and over.

Reading online, I found that shorebirds are picking at insects and other small organisms such as worms, spiders, gnats, or snails. But they also eat biofilm, a thin layer of nutritious slime on the sand.

There certainly is some repetition to our lives. We go through the motions and rhythms of our lives of eat, work, sleep – push repeat. We follow those patterns and hope to stay one skitter ahead of the waves. Most of the time we stay ahead, occasionally we get wet.

No profound thought other than do your best to enjoy small things. Try to take advantage of opportunities to do or see new things.  Break the pattern from time to time. Skitter ahead of the waves and stay away from slime, no matter how nutritious.

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