This is the time of evening when the mermaids come out....I’m certain of it.
As yet, I haven’t seen one, but I’m hopeful. Each evening, the beach empties and the sky turns a lovely milky-blue and so does the sea, tinged with gold or, on some evenings, deep shades of lavender and pink. The wind usually picks up around 4:00-ish and blows for an hour or so whipping up whitecaps in the water and etching mesmerizing patterns in the sand.
Then...a stillness settles over everything for as far as the eye can see. As I walk along the water’s edge, I keep a casual look out for what I imagine will be the sudden flash and shimmer of a silvery blue-green forked tail as my conjured mermaid -- or merman -- slaps the surface of the water, showing off just a little for me.
Everyone knows that a forked tail makes for a swift swimmer. In fact, the deeper the fork, the faster the swimmer, but my mer-creature has paused mid-swim with a curiosity to match my own. Eying one another cautiously across the gently lapping waves, we'll nod hello - which is the polite thing to do after all and then continue, alone once more, on our terrestrial and aquatic locomotions. Each a little shivery with the bit of magic that has occurred; one walking barefooted in the damp, cooling sand leaving a trail of happy footprints, the other slipping smoothly through the water leaving no trace at all.
Here are a few photographs of what I did find this evening as I roamed the quiet beach.
Photos, from top to bottom:
1. Patterns in the Sand
2. Casting A Long Shadow
3. Seagull
4. Feather in the Sand
5. The Fence
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