On Moonstone Beach

I hadn’t been here since May. During the spring and much of summer, nesting Terns and Piping Plovers own the place, and most of the beach is roped off out of respect for their reproductive needs. Come autumn, humans can again roam freely. Moonstone Beach — a place with a name like that just begs for a revisit. These Rhode Island beaches are all treasures — a string of pearls extending from Watch Hill’s Napatree Point all the way east to the Point Judith Light.

***

Once upon a time, people came here to be naked. I wasn’t aware of this fact until about ten years ago when I began visiting. At the time, there were signs posted forbidding nudity, but they have since disappeared — seems by now, everyone knows the good old days have passed. The movement toward inhibition came about when the area immediately behind the dunes of Moonstone Beach was designated as the Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge. I’m assuming it was the National part that led to the mandated covering of all humans.

In consideration of this, the muse has suggested that perhaps the matter of (emotional) nakedness in the world might be a worthy ponder for this sunrise walk.

It’s clear, cold and breezy as I arrive, most certainly a winter shore this morning. An ebbing tide has allowed me a wide beach, and the path I choose for my stroll is just to the ocean side of the band of moonstones that parallels the shoreline. Moonstones come in a variety of sizes and colors but are all basically oval shaped. My favorites are the smaller white ones, delicate and nearly translucent, with a fragile appearance that suggests they could dissolve if held for too long. Seaward and distant, a clot of loaded, low-flying cumulous clouds are ruling the horizon from east to south, but I welcome these and their potential to be backlit and gold fringed when the sun does rise. There are some gentle swells rolling in off the open Atlantic from the southwest, lifting up just offshore before collapsing onto the beach. I walk westward toward Green Hill Point, checking the sky behind me often. The clouds do not disappoint — a brilliant yellow glow traces their upper edges for some long moments before the sun finally breaks over them.

***

I’ve often wondered why some of us love to ruminate, to reflect and discern while walking along beaches, especially in the softer shoulder hues of the day, and during seasons other than summer. It comes as no surprise that on this perfect November beach at dawn, I’m the only one here save for birds. The entire length of the beach. Just me. The very edge of the abyssal ocean extends out to forever on one side of me, a swath of timeless moonstones to the other, and countless grains of packed sand pressing under each step. A planetary event unfolds before me, and the light it makes is warm and good. It’s easy to know my place here. It’s easy to feel a bit vulnerable.

I talk to myself in places like this. I speak softly and with purity, and don’t concern myself with grammar. Clarity is an inside job here. I often use a second person voice (something that rarely-if-ever happens on my pages), and will refer to myself as Stephen, when gently admonishing, and Steve, or Stevie Boy, or dude, otherwise. I try not to use profanity. There’s been enough of that. I used to beat the crap out of myself during such dialogues, but these days it’s far more an exercise in compassion. Dude’s a good-natured old slob who’s been through a lot — third person voice sometimes used with discretion.

It’s good to hear the things that trouble me voiced into the clean air, to send the words and root thoughts on their way — to release them, like a prayer, like a confession. But how I wish I were better at this in conversation with the many trusted others I know — to let them hear me speak of things that wound and sadden me, frighten or anger or shame me, all the grief and all the love, anything that may suggest something other than the measured ways I often present to the world. To say the same kinds of things I have heard from courageous others.

There are words that will summon the power of all there is, that will elicit the mercy and compassion of those who hear and respond to them, words that will rarely fail to bring goodness close. They are uttered in the humility of desperation or of deep need, and so to say them is a gift. To really mean them is to stand naked before another. Where giving and receiving are seen as one is the place we say, please help me.

Peace,

Stephen