Reflecting on time.
· by Roy Edlund
And just like that May is gone and June takes its place.
I've said this a number of times, but I marvel at how time is starting to blur.
When I was a kid, it seemed summer would last forever. Now it's over in a breath.
Watching the sanderlings, I start to wonder. Does he know he only has ten years, give or take?
It doesn't stand at the water's edge doing the math, knowing his time is running short.
He doesn't feel the summers getting shorter or notice he's run this same beach a thousand times.
He just runs.
The wave goes out, he follows. The wave comes in, he retreats. There is only this wave.
That is the whole of it, and it is enough.
But me, I'm sitting here keeping count.
Sixty-nine years, and another month just went by like pelicans gliding the dune line in a nor'easter.
And this bird with a tenth of my lifespan lives like it has forever.
And me, I'm the one watching the sand run through the glass.
Maybe the trick was never having more time.
Maybe it was learning to stand in one wave at a time, like there was never going to be another one.
Like I never needed there to be.
Love from here. ❤
Prints of the photos in this post are available in the Beach Bum Gallery on paper, canvas and metal.