This is a quick sketch of a day's outing.

~

Colin comes down, a four hour drive from Marin County, destination Avila beach, the tide pools. Marketa has been there, it is new to Lin, Colin and myself.

The sand leans towards black—rough, coarse sand. It's painful, almost, to walk barefoot.

The beach has eroded outcroppings along the shoreline, at the base of which are the tide pools. Tall, grass-covered bluffs to the south, rocky shores below. The rocky outcroppings cause the waves to come crashing in, spume flying high, and hiss upon retreat. It is dramatic.

Colin and Marketa explore the tide pools, Lin and I, too, but become more interested in combing the rocky shore, the rocks. The sand is rough, the rocks polished and smooth. Beautiful rocks.

I find one so beautiful and so smooth, smoother than any other rock we find, and fits in the hand so well that it seems other-worldly. I am entranced by it. I show it to Lin and she is taken by it, too. I see it in her expression, her movement.

To hold it is a strange and odd sensation. It seems as if it is more than it is—the convex side conforming to the palm, the concave side meant to be touched and rubbed by the thumb—the color, the shine of it—a rich, deep black. 

Her fingers close around it. 

Later, she takes out her notebook, her journal, and begins to write. That evening she hows me her jottings: 

        sea worn by eons

             there is an existence beyond —

[she slashes words or lines  /////  that don’t work for her] 

                       what we know  ////// can imagine

lin is the rock

       infinte beyond   ///////

 sea worn by eons

        existence beyond ////// imaginable

             on the beach   ///////

                                          gift 

                                                   proof

      one rock at a time

[she write many more lines, then slashes the lines with her pen]

sea worn by eons

              existence beyond imagining     ///////

                                     our imagining

sea worn by eons

     existence beyond imagining

existence beyond imagining

    winter light    ///////     reveals

winter light upon

                                  existence

         winter light reveals 

                         existence somewhere beyond

                                        winter revelation

                                                 winter's boundlessness

winter's boundlessness 

     existence beyond our ken

            sea worn beyond eons

                                            by eons

rock sea worn   ////////

           eons of waves   //////   seashore rock

                         this is a rock sea worn

                                   by eons

[many lines slashed]

                                winter light

                                        glints seashore

          sea worn by eons

                            existence beyond within 

                                  pacific born waves

                    sunlit shore    reveals

[slashed lines]

   [slashed lines]

       [slashed lines]

             winter light 

                   pacific waves reveal

                         existence beyond ken

    pacific shore

         one palm-sized rock   /////

                surely meant to be   //////// 

                surely meant to be

    pacific seashore

///////   sunlight glints   //////  one palm-sized rock

                          eons of waves   //////

             one palm-sized rock      sun-warmed

                  eons of waves   ///////    /////    held

eons of waves  ////// rocks

    of tides      worn and sunlit   //////

               one palm sized     in hand

                       pacific seashore

                               shine rocks worn glinting

eons of waves     //////

    one palm-sized rock    //////    in hand

         pacific seashore

          eons of waves

                    palm-sized rock in hand

     pacific seashore   //////

                         sea worn by eons 

                            sunlit rock warms my cold hand

                     pacific seashore

`

1/15/26