Snippet: The Little Things
I am chilled. The sand beneath my feet is icy, and clings to my toes and heals. There is a damp spot on the seat of my pants where condensation on the dinghy's bench soaked through, and the cool morning breeze prickles my skin there. A sweatshirt and windbreaker aren't enough when my legs are bare below the hem of my shorts. I want my morning coffee, but I can't make myself head to the town beyond the beach. I find myself marveling at seashells. Tiny, foreclosed homes of hermit crabs, tangled in the damp fragrant seaweed at the high tide line. Pushed clear of the water to make room for newer developments. Some bear the scars of parasitic nibbling. Some chipped by the efforts of the gulls that circle above, which circle above, crying out about the pain in their bottomless stomachs. Some, open-end facing up, beckoning the pale morning sun. I turn them over. The shells and my fingers are sandy, like salt and pepper to tempt the scavengers. The dunes that rise like a shaggy spine between the cove and the surf whisper in the morning breeze, their coarse grass playing both string and wind instruments to break the day. I smell bacon wafting in the air. The griddle of the beach resort at the edge of the sand is preparing for the day. I long, again, for my coffee. But the quiet magic of the cove holds me in place. My toes are locked to the sand. My heart pulls me into the tiny confines, searching for the shell that fits me best. Author's note: These snippets are unedited free-writing exercises that I use as a way to shift my brain into a creative state. I use Lynda Barry's What It Is YouTube timed exercises (usually 9 minutes worth of writing) for these. They are handwritten in a composition notebook and then typed up here. As I transcribe them, I do tiny grammar and spelling checks, but the overall "clarity" (if you can call it that) of the exercise is left as-is.