THE PIPING PLOVERS MAKE ART...AND THEN WE DO

piping plovers, originally uploaded by patryfrancis.

Though I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, I did make art. I also saw art. Everywhere. In the leaves that remain on the trees, browning yes, but still containing the last mysterious traces of summer's light, in the rust patterns on the my son's first car, in the cottony whiteness of my mother's hair.




Yesterday we trooped to the beach, kids, dogs, all of us, and found we had entered one of life's perfect and perfectly enigmatic hours. The tide was out; the light was pink and gold; and the piping plovers (one of my personal obsessions) were doing their delicate dance up and down the beach.

The kids and I played detective, following their arrow-like prints until they converged in an almost indecipherable mass. Usually there was a tell-tale clamshell or a sucked out crab leg to explain why the plovers had themselves a little party in that particular spot.


We also noticed the way the tides had etched treelike images on the sand as they tugged the seaweed onto the shore. Art was everywhere!

The dogs chased each other to the sandbars and then took a swim in the icy water. When they emerged, hey seemed to shake even more triumphantly than usual--as if they knew this might be their last swim of the year, and they wanted to enjoy it to the hilt.

Someday I will go to the beach without feeling the need to bring back a treasure, but yesterday was not that day.

Collectively we found:

*a perfectly flat rock that was shaped like an irregular heart

*some dried black seaweed that looked enough like my impossible hair that I saved it for a possible self portrait

*sea roses that were still in bloom which we admired, but did not take home

*pine branches both living and dead

*three pieces of sea glass

*an amazing shell that bore an exotic brown and white design.

On the ride back home, the kids pulled their treasures from their pockets and held them up to the changing light. I couldn't wait to look at mine either--though I waited till we hit a stop light.

Then we went home and made art! The kids set up the art space and made us a banner.



Then the women joined in. Though the men were preoccupied by football, they proved to be a most appreciative audience when we held our "exhibit" later on.