Life Is Full of Sweet Spots

“The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.”   ̶   Rachel Carson

Marine biologist and author Rachel Carson wrote in her classic book, The Edge of the Sea, of a marginal world, an area where waves have broken against the land, the tides have pressed forward, receded, and then returned. It is an elusive boundary, a place that belongs both to the land and the sea.

The shore, as Carson sees it, is a place that keeps alive the relentless drive of life. Each time she entered it, she gained some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meaning, a greater sense of the intricate fabric of life that links one creature with another and with its surroundings.

For me, the edge of the sea, or for that matter, of a lake, a pond or brook, is always a special spot. It is a place of scales and song, of memories, legends and mermaids, of goddesses and fisher kings, of balance, seduction, courtship, aquatic leaves and reeds, camouflage, iridescent colors, mosaics of sand and stone, scavengers that graze and fish that cruise. It is a place to breathe, to linger, to haunt.

Photos by Mary O’Connor (c) 2013