Trash Island, Small Treasures

I woke up again this morning to rain spattering the windows and wind from the southwest and instead of cursing another storm after a solid two weeks of coastal squall, I’m actually sort of excited.

Because, you see, the recent storms have been stirring the ocean and all sorts of stuff is washing up. Most of it is trash, and that depresses me. And the little bits of plastic left behind by the high surf line on the sand are even more depressing–little bits of white, orange and blue slowly being worn down by the waves and one day our beaches will be entirely made of plastic sand, I theorize.

And then I get to thinking about just how much trash is actually out there, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, twice the size of Texas, floating out there between California and Hawaii. And then I start thinking about how much we’ve damaged this earth and how we’re being swallowed up by our own consumeristic, throw-away lifestyles, and then I can either 1. start to hyperventilate or 2. remain optimistic that the one thing humans continue to do is evolve and we may actually be able to see a global shift in consciousness about the way we live before we become swallowed in it, and then I can move on.

Move on to the other thing the storms have washed up on north coast beaches: Japanese fishing floats. As I was heading out on a late-afternoon beachwalk Tuesday, I came across a man just leaving the beach carrying four small glass floats in his hands. I asked him if he had just found them, because I could hardly believe it, and he said yes, and that he could hardly believe it himself. And then yesterday, I met a couple vacationing from Idaho with their adorable black lab who found a giant green one, 38 inches around, a glowing, muck-covered orb that traveled all the way across the ocean from Japan on some current or another over the years, perhaps spending several years among the laundry detergent bottles and styrofoam in Trash Island before last week’s storm released it from that destiny.

So anyway, this has gotten me all excited and I’ve taken to the beaches whenever I get a spare hour, which right now isn’t often, since I’ve found myself once again putting out fires at small coastal newspapers–is this somehow my life’s calling? I don’t know. It’s my path to travel on, and it’s a good one. And so I walk the beach, looking along the high surf line and up into the rocks and driftwood for my own little treasure. As I walk, my thoughts move from one point to the next–from a fascination with the idea of Japan out there across the ocean, to Trash Island and plastic sand–to the thought that these glass floats probably don’t turn up when you are actually looking for them.

I think they kind of have to find YOU.

But that wont stop me from walking the beach after work, after today’s wind and rain, to see what the tide leaves.