Copyright 2010 Roberta Osborn. All rights reserved.

Dreams of the Borderland

Reunion

I am hiking along a creek toward the ocean under a clear blue sky.  I intend to seek fossils in the

crumbling clay at the beach.  The path is well

worn from the similar curiosity of other people,

and winds up and down along a steep eroding

bank. I brace myself on trees and old trunks

that lean out from roots exposed from the red-

brown earth.  Every step is a unique exercise

of care.  There are many muddy areas on the

trail where it dips low toward the water.  Here

and there, someone has built wooden

walkways over the creek to skirt the steeper

areas.  These walkways nearly float on the

surface. Every step brings water up through

the planks.  I play with this, tipping this edge

and that, washing the soles of my muddy

boots.  Eventually, I climb back up on the bank,

conscious now that I only dip into the real

mystery of life when the going gets a little

tough. 

The creek broadens out into an unusual marsh. 

The low forest here has been flooded by a

storm surge that crashed up the creek from the

sea and never drained away completely.  Bare

tree trunks stand in the glinting, black water

amid broad lily pads.  Frogs croak in the sun,

loud and nearby. I begin to hear the surf and

smell the salt air.  I finally reach the tiny beach

amid the high tumbling cliffs. The breeze is blowing here and the waves are gentle.  I walk along

the sand, picking up gray and red rocks, selecting those with the hint of something formed within. 

I recognize the creek, a mere rivulet here, trickling back into the ocean.  It sparkles as it winds

under driftwood and across the beach.  I am mesmerized by this, the entire ocean on my left, the

rivulet of clear water returning to it from my right.  It had not occurred to me before that the return

to the ocean could be so simple, a small stream instead of a broad confluence of river and delta. 

Here the fact of the reunion is not obscured by size and force.  The stream is gentle, gradual, and

persistent, finding its way by any means to rejoin the sea.

A single seagull hovers in the wind, sharing the view with me.  Out of the corner of its mouth it

says, "Wherever you go, there you are."  I have heard this somewhere before, and I nod my

head.  "All Romes lead to road," I respond.  We cackle together for a moment and the seagull lifts

away to the cliff.  I bend down to watch for eventful things in the mild surf, snatching up and

peering at tumbling and wiggling things alike. I have a sense that there is vast, mysterious destiny

at work beneath the sea.  Lulled by the rhythmic, rolling shore, I can only know a little of what is

going on.  I lift up to inspect my finds and pocket or discard them, one at a time.   Gazing out

toward the horizon, I see a pod of dolphins racing across the glinting waves.  They leap and

weave across the sea, enjoying freedom in the company of friends.

I sit down on a fallen trunk that has made its way to the beach.  I pick up rocks and look for

layers, marks of varied composition.  Selecting a small striped rock, I crack it just so between two

sandy bands of color and sure enough, there is a bivalve fossil there, split precisely in two finely

detailed halves, convex and concave.  I fit them neatly back together and take them apart a few

times, marveling at the millions or perhaps hundreds of millions of years that this impression of a

living thing persisted in the world, waiting for the gentle tap of my little hammer to be revealed.

I realize that I may never make an impression as accidentally durable in solid form, but I hope

that the consequences of my actions and beliefs will ramify in tender and persistent ways into the

future of the world.  For now, I begin my walk back nearly empty-handed, taking only bits of past

events as my samples of a sojourn to the sea.  As I climb back on the path, I resolve to make

sure everyone around me knows my perspective and the meaning of my heart, not by accident,

but on purpose.