The tropical flavor variety pack of being bad at spotting animals

I’m not sure why I keep fiddling around with an essay that is about, essentially, an almost-total lack of sightings at the same Maryland beach that I visited twice this past weekend, the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Maybe because I feel like the lack of sightings is an intrinsic part of the being-in-nature process? Maybe because this blog is a blog about sometimes being very very bad at seeing animals — not just because of luck and “nature isn’t Disney World” and so on but also because sometimes I’m lazy and sometimes I’m not grateful for sunrises. Sometimes if there aren’t that many birds around I’ll listen to erotica in one earbud and miss the turnoff for the trail I meant to take. Sometimes I forget to bring extra sunscreen. Or sunglasses. Or water.

Sometimes I am very, very bad at this.

I got into a family fight over Thanksgiving. It was a long time coming, and probably was necessary, but I didn’t love it.

On my way home, with the sun setting behind the Blue Ridge Mountains, I pulled off the state highway and tried to get myself into a position to appreciate the view.

You know when this works? When you do this move and, I dunno, pull into the parking lot of a super charming cafe that’s open late and so after you watch the sunset you go in and order a hot chocolate and it’s the best darn hot chocolate you’ve ever had and you know that you’ll always try to stop there any time you come that way, even though you might not come that way ever again.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

This was not one of those times. I drove on roads hemmed in by tall, stately pine trees — lovely in themselves, but frustratingly blocking my view just as the sun dipped under the horizon. 

I turned around in unfriendly driveways.

I saw cows grazing in peaceful pastures and stopped to grab a picture, only to have a car zoom up out of nowhere, forcing me onwards and pronto.

If I stopped to identify a bird’s call, that bird stopped singing.

Eventually, the sun set and there was nothing I could do about it. I did not take a contemplative, satisfying sip of hot chocolate as I mused over everything that had brought me to this moment. I tried to avoid getting run over by the car tailgating me and I regretted ever leaving the state highway in the first place.

The best picture I could get of the sun setting behind the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The next day, I went to Kent Island, which is a thing I’ve been meaning to do for years. Kent Island is an irregular jumble of inlets between the mainland of the United States and the infinitely confusing Delaware/Maryland/Virginia peninsula.

I waited to go till after services. Services, when I attend them, are with Fabrangen. What does Fabrangen mean, you might ask? Nothing, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s a spelling error that has gone on for thirty plus years now and that has settled in for the long haul.

Whatever Fabrangen was supposed to mean, if it had been spelled correctly, it now has come to represent a havurah of the old school: an egalitarian gathering place to discuss Jewish life and prayer and community.

My particular havurah is filled with aging hippies who, pre-COVID, gathered around a folding table set with a tie-dyed cloth. This folding table and cloth served as the bimah, or elevated platform from which Torah would traditionally be read if this were a traditional congregation. There is no Rabbi; volunteers lead the discussion. 

Everyone knows a lot more about Judaism than I do. Almost everyone was raised Jewish, and I was not. 

It’s charming and old school and kind and only very rarely reminds me of a Boomer meme. 

During the discussion I said something almost incomprehensible about Colombia’s new president. As soon as services ended, I thought of a single sentence that would have tied what I was saying perfectly to the discussion at hand. Oh, well. People didn’t really need to know what I had to say about Colombia anyway.

It took another few hours to get myself fed and packed and pointed in the direction of Kent Island. By this time, I was racing the sunset.

It was a gorgeous day, a gorgeous drive. I set out with an attitude that might almost be described as jaunty.

And that’s when — distracted, perhaps, by the erotica mumbling into one earbud — I took a wrong turn and got stuck behind a scrim of reeds three times my height, beyond which, I sensed rather than saw the sun setting over the Chesapeake Bay.

The sun setting behind these reeds, beyond this pond, and then beyond another set of reeds.

I watched the clouds stain pink and then, having no wish to walk the path in darkness, I turned around and vowed to return the next morning. Early! I would see the sunrise!

I did not see the sunrise. I was up till 1 am working on divorce finances.

I woke up in time to see the sunrise, took one look at myself in the mirror, and went back to bed.

I did go out to Kent Island that day, arriving at around 2 pm. It was drizzling. The park was abandoned, my car was only the second one in the parking lot. On the gorgeous day before, the lot had been packed.

When I finally stepped onto the beach, it felt like a place I had been searching for for a long, long time — much longer than just a couple of days. And now it was mine. The only sign of human presence was one-half of a melted McDonald’s smoothie and a soaked-through box containing most of a 12-pack of Corona Tropical Flavor Hard Selzer Water.

I walked out to the Bay Bridge and back.

Each moment brought new light, and a shift to the tide.

Sometimes there were deer tracks.

Sometimes, sea grasses.

Sometimes, a desiccated horseshoe crab carcass.

Why is just being in nature so healing? I wondered this as I walked the shore, listening to the lap of the waves.

I let my mind drift back to the Tropical Flavor Hard Seltzer. 

A few people began joining me on the beach, the clouds started lifting. Some had brought their dogs, who played a little on the sand. I hope they haven’t taken any of my seltzer, I thought.

When I reached the end of the beach, I picked up the smoothie and threw it away. Then, I picked up the almost-split box of hard seltzer in flavors like “Spicy Pineapple” and “Mandarin-Starfruit,” and started back down the trail.

I saw a tiny movement in the reeds, similar to the reeds that had blocked my vision the day before.

By this time, the two sides of the box containing the hard seltzer had had a major rift. If I put it down, I might not be able to pick it up again. 

I looked at the seltzer, I looked at the reeds. It was worth it. 

Putting the seltzer down, I crept up on the reeds and — at last. A bird. A song sparrow.

I don’t know why, exactly, nature is so healing. It’s surely not perfect, not symmetrical, not forgiving, not kind.

Sometimes it leaves us little gifts though. A tiny bird striped in shades of brown and buff, say. A watermelon-lime hard seltzer.

I picked up the alcohol in its crumbling box. It held together somehow, all the way on the long walk back to the car.

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Thomas Pluck and I are meeting up to watch eagles and take a walk at Conowingo Dam. Watch for updates in both of our spaces — here’s his excellent Substack, What Pluckery Is This?