Safe Harbor

1 - Maeve The waves’ rhythmic crashes called me from the wooded trail I had been following, and I responded to their chant like a mermaid-enthralled sailor. I fought my way through thick brambles and rotting logs, snapping off dried-out pine branches until an outcrop of pale gray rock surged from the mossy forest ground. As soon as I climbed over the rounded summit, the landscape panned out like a book opening, the Atlantic greeting me with a salty breeze and excited gull’s cries. The rounded rock slope was a work of art. Glaciers had eroded the hard stone into a smooth finish. Crystalline fractures etched by powerful forces crisscrossed the rock, tracing an abstract pattern of orange, black and white lines. I shuck off the light nylon backpack and the heavy walking shoes, then pulled off the cotton-and-polyester, reinforced-sole socks, crusted with mud, sweat and fatigue. After two days of hiking in the forest, the sun-warmed rock soothed my aching feet. I sat, my back resting against my heavy pack, watching dainty shorebirds picking up their dinner, their curved beaks soaking in the brine. The exhaustion of the hike fell away, as the sun bathed my limbs. I opened myself to the waves’ sonic pendulum, the swooping vibration of diving cormorants, the gulls’ plaintive calls, the squeal of a startled killdeer, the deep diesel rumble of a fishing boat, its hull a bright blue, approaching the harbor. A cloud of white birds escorted the small craft, circling, swooping, hoping for a gift. The boat rounded the breakwater barrier, motoring toward the harbor. Squinting, I could make out a marina full of gleaming hulls, masts spiked with bouquets of silver antennas. A long wooden pier separated the marina from the beach, colored with sightseers, shops and a parking lot glittering with toy-sized cars. Carried by the gentle wind, their faraway chatter mingled with the bird calls. My baby brother would have parked his easel at the end of this pier, sitting there for hours, drawing the fishing boats bobbing along the fancy yachts, the blue sea receding, the waves rushing and crashing against the long arm of a breaker wall. Me, I preferred to blend in the landscape. To become a part of it, forgetting everything else. The waves came, endless, rows and rows of them. An image of eternity. After a while, I rose and followed a dark fracture in the polished rock until the mineral surface sank under the beach. I rolled up my pants and scampered to the surf, leaving imprints in the moist sand. (In forested trails, I favored pants, since Lyme disease was transmitted by ticks falling on unsuspecting vacationers.) The cold water soothed my sore feet. A stranded jellyfish, its translucent skin shimmering with rainbow colors, lay half-buried in the sand. Nearby, a pristine conch beckoned for an ear to hear its song. I picked it up and listened to this primeval, timeless echo. I pictured a remote Neolithic ancestor bending over and doing the same, maybe smiling. I walked until I didn’t see the pier anymore, hidden by the gray rock. On the way, I avoided the loose rocks and the small plastic fragments rolling with the waves.