It’s hard to write about the ocean. It’s not just waves, black beach rocks, seafoam and sand. It’s not just windbent trees, the long horizon, the scent, the swell, the hush and roar and hush and roar. It’s not a list or an elaborate description, but it seems that’s all I have. It’s not just the thrill of a warm, January day full of bright sun, the pace and push of a long walk, the slow build of heat beneath my coat, the bite of shallow streams on my bare feet. Maybe it’s about climbing along the old road carved from rock that opened up at low tide and let us through. For the first time I took it in as one long trek, without stop, from Arch Cape to Hug Point to Arcadia Beach.
I walked with a friend and the company was good, but I still felt alone. I always feel alone at the beach. A solitude that only the ocean brings.
After a day of perfect sun we woke to a morning of soft grayblue so smudged that sky was sea was sky. Another kind of perfect. Another kind of alone, even more exquisite. It’s hard to write about, but if you love the ocean, you already know.
Tracy Burkholder 
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