Last week:
This morning I went for a beach walk by myself in Ft. Morgan, a first. The tide was low and out, making the beach flat and walkable. We've been worried about beach erosion lately, the shore feeling closer and closer to us. The waves slinked forward, hugging my feet and silently retreating. I could hear the waves from the house last night. The hushed white noise bathed in the bright moonlight.
I wanted to find a sand dollar this morning because I've heard that there's been an unusual amount this winter. It must be man-of-war season again. I saw a few of them, their limp blue bodies tossing in the waves.
I guess the ocean has seasons.
I searched for a sand dollar, raking the piles of shells with my eyes. There were brown streaks left by the tide and I'm not sure if it's also seasonal, or left over from the BP oil spill. Sometimes we still find blobs of dispersant.
And then I saw a sand dollar right in front of me, shimmering and left wet as the water retreated. They look like little presents offered up by the sea. Little happys.
I found 8 sand dollars that morning. I found 13 not long after that in the span of an hour. Something, or a combination of things must be happening to generate the tidal production. I don't know if it's a "bloom" or enough tidal force at a certain time, at a certain place, for a certain period, but having come here for more than 10 years, I've never ever found this many sand dollars. We consider ourselves lucky to find one in a year.
And that's what sand dollars are regarded for - harbingers of good luck. Does this mean I'll have an abundance of luck for the year? No, it feels rather greedy to have found all the sand dollars. I felt like I was robbing the beach of some of its most precious wares, ranging in size and ranging in bleachedness.
Why am I finding all the sand dollars? Have they lost a predator, making them more abundant? Or is something making them die? Is it a unique, special tide that only happens every few decades?
Things thought of as incidental are likely to be results of very definite chains of events. There are always answers. Just have to go looking for them.