Happy as a jellyfish in a tidal pool.
· by Roy Edlund
This is from a couple of years ago on this date and since I've got a website emergency, I walked around the vault to find something for you.
After a weeklong nor’easter, the beach looked like someone had picked it up, given it a good shake, and then set it back down a little crooked.
As normally happens in South Nags Head, the storm had left a tidal pool, clear and still, with the sand ripples showing through.
You know I can't walk past ripples, they are my obsession.
Since it was too cool to wade in, I just walked along the edge, trying to get the light and the shadows to line up.
The water was very clear and the ripples were amazing, but there were a few dark shapes in the water. Debris, I figured. There's always plenty of it on the beach after a storm.
Anyway, then I got closer.
Cannonball jellyfish.
I was a little sad that they were trapped in there, but I looked around and saw dozens more on the sand that weren’t lucky enough to land in the pool.
They were doing that pulsing thing to go nowhere and I made myself laugh thinking up a homespun witticism (as I am prone to do) "happy as a jellyfish in a tidal pool".
Since they don't really swim, they’re no match for the wind and the current. They pretty much go where they’re sent. The storm sent them here, and then the water went back out without them.
There’s probably a life lesson in there about going where the current takes you or being thankful for the tidal pools in your life.
I'll leave that to you, I just took the picture.
Love from here. ❤️
Prints of the photos in this post are available in the Beach Bum Gallery on paper, canvas and metal.