Tar Ball

Most times we’re pretty upbeat about what we do. The feelings of disgust and grief are back-burnered to the thrill of being on the hunt. Today with an abundance of plastic debris it should proffer the song of the joyous worker happily on task. But today it’s too much. Bending, bending…it gets you out of breath. Yes, there was lots of stuff to glean—some of it rare and envied and that inner wave of covetous glee was activated again and again. A soldier right off the bat, three lighters. Boom boom boom—stuck in the “treasure pocket” for gloating later. Lots of stuff. Three black Kodak film canisters show up holding our interest: these will soon be fossils from the Plasticene.

And the beautiful day, the first real warm day of the season, should evoke just a bit of uplift. But a lingering bitterness surfaces—its mantra: “picking up other peoples crap- picking up other peoples crap- picking up other peoples crap. All that does is focus the energy on an aching back. We are barefoot in the warm sand, then Judith steps on a big hidden tar-ball…I step on a smaller one. Ukk, this may be our last trip, feeling old and tired, we’re ready to cash out and fold.

 

Home, its better, we did find some good stuff, the tar cleaned with a “hair of the dog that bit you”…gasoline. The petrochemical circle. There were two wildflowers new to us and looking on the web for the names we stumble on the fact that the PRNSS is a sister park to Kolkheti National park in the Republic of Georgia. Hey! Who is having an exhibit in the US embassy in the Rep of Georgia?  Hey! Field Trip! We are such suckers for uplift.

Baby Blue Eyes