Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

…or why I love the beach.

1. Watching the endless variety and shape of crashing waves.
2. Pondering how the ocean hurls massive tree trunks well beyond the highwater mark.
3. Discovering the strange gray rock shot through with thin white in the shape of a heart.
4. Oh, wait is that a whale spouting?
5. Finding just the right spot to doze in the rare January sun.
6. Wondering if the water touching Oregon also touched Japan.
7. Discovering the perfect sand dollar.
8. Considering how the dunes have changed in the last 40 years.
9. Thinking how everything dances, trees in the wind, sanderlings scuttling ahead of the water, the seaweed tossing and waving, pelicans rising and diving, dogs free and prancing.
10. Wondering if it’s water that makes sand out of rocks.