You can see my footprints as I stepped down the icy and snow-covered rocks to the shore and then came back around. You may even see where I fell, which is always a possibility on the icy shores of Maine in the winter. Considering that I’d forgotten my cellphone (again), some might say it was a stupid thing to do. Some might say that I had endangered myself. But they weren’t down by that shore.
I can’t miss a chance to listen in to the bargain that takes
place down at the water’s edge. The two
are always negotiating in winter. See,
in summer things are pretty cut and dry.
There’s land and there’s water.
There’s an absolute demarcation.
But in the winter, things get blurred a bit and the bargaining begins.
 |
| Down at the bargaining table. |
The ocean starts by telling the land (as it always does)
that it wishes to come up and walk upon the soil. The land tells the ocean it would be pleased
to allow this, but the ocean must let the hardness of the land extend out into
the ocean. Each greedily rubs its hands
together and agrees. So the ocean comes
upon the shore to stretch its watery hand outward, and as it does so, it freezes
instantly, which allows a hardness to extend out over the water.
The ocean has now entered the territory of the land, and the
land has now entered the territory of the ocean. The edge is blurred and where one begins and
the other ends is anyone’s guess. It
never lasts, though. Their eternal struggle
continues once each realizes it has lost some its territory. Then spring comes and both are stuck in a
very compromising position.
I go just to listen to the negotiations. They’re both quite good at it, but if I laugh
too loudly at their outrageousness, I always seem to slip on the rocks on my
way back. I’m sure it’s just in my
imagination. Where the shore ends and
the ocean begins is anyone’s guess at this point, as I said, but you can
probably bank on the fact that I’ll always forget my cellphone, especially in
cases of emergency. Even if I were to
bring it, there is the issue of charging it as well.
I can’t imagine having something like a cellphone with me
down here anyway, though. Such a foreign
and alien thing it is. It would seem
almost sacrilegious to bring it to this place of beauty. Perhaps that’s why they let me go. For now.
