The Juice of It

Tidal Pools, Suckers, and Scavengers

Okay, so, tidal pools. I’ve written a little about tidal pools before but what can you do, I love ‘em. 

The thing is, I love mess, and tidal pools are nothing if not a mess.

I visited Sweden once, and of course it was wonderful, gorgeous, I fell in love, everyone falls in love.

Sailboat off a perfect island in Sweden.

It was like falling in love with that girl with straight hair in  high school who was beautiful and smart and in, like, 4-H randomly and who rescued injured animals. OK, sure, you’re in love with her. You and everyone else, right?

It takes no effort to fall in love with this place.

That’s like floating in a salty ocean, falling in love with a place that stops every day for coffee and a snack — no, I’m serious, they do it! If you only offer coffee at 3 pm to a Swede and you don’t give them a snack, you get grumpy Swede. They then have the temerity to call the whole thing “fika" which is an insanely cute name.(1)

Anyway, I spent the whole time in Sweden enjoying my coffee and cardamom buns and feeling subtly out of sorts even as I was falling in love, and not knowing why, and it was only after I traveled to a few more places that I realized that I, personally, need more mess in my life. I am not a sunset-at-the-beach person. I can appreciate Margaritaville, but it is not for me.

Hermit crab

I am a tidal pool person. I like it when the water starts pulling back and the sand starts doing a striptease. I like it when the ocean’s underbelly starts showing — the seaweed muck, the tiny snails, the barnacles, the bottom-dwellers.

A spider crab mating, I think.

Periwinkle Snails

A sucker, that’s me. All the animals getting by on the strength of their single foot, and then the harvesters and scavengers coming after them, the seagulls and crabs, the creatures pacing the sand, leaving scattered tracks, and then the violence: cracking shells, prying loose, probing, opening.

That’s what I’m here for, right now, at this moment. All the sweet, salty gush on the inside, all the juice of it, all the truth of it.

Clam shell and horseshoe crab shell.

Wishing you all a juicy, wanderful week.

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(1) I have to include just some of this copy from this Swedish-fan website on the tradition of fika because it is *wild*. 

“Fika is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. Many Swedes consider that it is almost essential to make time for fika every day. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat. …

Fika can be a verb. Swedes will say to each other, ‘Let's go and fika!’ or ‘You and I fika together so well’. …

Often fika is enjoyed by candlelight, even if it is in an office or the corner of a factory. It's all about slowing down and finding time for friends and colleagues, whilst you sip a drink and enjoy something small to eat. Candlelight helps!”