Walking on Ocean Beach

I often walk on Ocean Beach here in San francisco to stay in shape and to treat myself spiritually. I connect to the vastness of existence being by the ocean and the apparent freedom of the playful dolphins, daring surfers and soaring birds lifts my spirits and fills me with hope.

But yesterday was different.

Yesterday I became immensely sad when i was confronted with a oiled sea bird helpless on the beach. harassed by crows and unleashed dogs. its feathers were completely covered in oil, and it could barely move. when i walked within the distance that would usually cause a bird to move away it merely opened its mouth and gasped! I don't think it could even speak.

I moved further away so as not to antagonize it further and allowed myself to fall apart a bit. I cried as i watched the animals harass the bird. I wanted to be able to rescue it but i knew i didn't know how and i'd only hurt it more.

I wanted to rush home and find the agency that saves these birds, but i felt saddled by my own health needs. I was due for a blood draw so i went off to Kaiser and dealt with all the parking, waiting etc issues.

When i got home i'm ashamed to say i forgot for a bit and it wasn't until i noticed that my feet were covered in oil that i remembered what i'd seen. As i scrubbed the foul oil off my feet (which was not yielding to soap!) i realized that this meant that Ocean beach was fouled with an oil slick. I had thought that the bird had somehow arrived a ocean beach after being oiled in the bay where the so called small spill was supposed to be localized.

So i went online and checked the chronicle site which did have an update indicating that the spill was bigger than originally thought and that there was wide spread threat to our eco system.

I e-mailed the reported my late observations and wondered how bad this was going to be.

this morning the reporter had another article on the impact of this spill, even more extensive than they'd thought early yesterday. It's fouling the farlon islands! all i can do is grieve.

I grieve for the environment.

And i grieve self centeredly for myself because i'm too sick to do anything to help! can it be true that i'm this ineffective? when i was young i was too young to do anything about exxon valdez spill in Alaska. I swore that when i was a free agent adult type person that i'd participate in clean ups of this sort.

I became a lawyer to make a difference, i became a teacher to make a difference, but i never did a single beach clean up. and now i'm too sick to participate in one in my own backyard.

How ironic that my cancer was likely kicked off by the solvents that are part of the nasty petroleum fuels that foul our earth.

People have said that my art is part of the solution. that might be true if it were seen by people and inspired them to action. but this is not so. it still hides, after all these years. now not because i'm too shy to distribute it, but because i'm too damn tiered to distribute it!

so today i'll take my camera to the beach and see what there is to see, what i can capture with my camera. see if that's how i help.