Dr Bob
I keep a magic rock in the top drawer of my office desk.
Please don't tell anybody, cause you know how they get when they hear you have
a magic rock. Some don't believe in such things, so they stare at me with that
funny look on their faces. And if they know about magic rocks I have to watch
them, or they might try to steal mine.
Still, it's worth the risk, for when the day begins to
overwhelm me, I can close my eyes, roll the cool smooth stone between my
fingers, and immediately I'm transported back to Pt. Reyes National Seashore,
to Kehoe beach, where I found it….
I'm strolling the high tide line heading south, and if I
choose, I can walk for hours. I might walk to infinity, for I cannot see either
end of the beach from here. A fog bank hangs a few miles off the coast, but the
sky above is clear, blue, and sunny.
Two ravens swoop and soar on the wind above the sand dunes
to my left. On my right, a line of ratty looking pelicans commute to the north,
gliding in formation with their wing tips just skimming the waves. They drop
into a wave trough, and then reappear above the next crest with just a few wing
beats.
Tide's out, so the waves break well down the beach,
spreading out into a thin smooth sheet that peters out before reaching my bare
feet. This creates a mirror reflecting a foraging gull standing knee deep in
the receding water.
With a slight whistling sound, the wind blows into my right
ear and out the left. The air smells like no one has used it before.
Nobody is on this beach but me, nobody to interrupt the
thoughts crashing around in my mind. I burrow deep into the vault that is my
brain, finding memories stacked one upon the other on shelves extending well
back into the darkness. It looks like this place hasn't been cleaned for a
while.
Brushing old cobwebs out of the way, I stumble across boxes
holding the thoughts of a lifetime. Successes and failures, victories and
losses, weddings and divorces, it goes on and on. And it is packed nearly to
the ceiling. No wonder I cannot think straight.
So I unscrew the top of my head and dump out all this crud
into a little pile on the sand.
As I'm picking through it, tossing out the bad and trying to
rearrange the good, a half buried fragment of abalone shell off to the side
catches my eye. Turning the shard over, the sand eroded layers inside flash
into brilliance in the sunlight, and I marvel at the frozen rainbow that God
hides inside each of these shells. I wonder if an abalone, without any eyes,
can truly appreciate the beauty of its own home. I guess none of us do, if we
don't look.
Distracted, I get up and wander further down the beach. I
watch the shorebirds scurrying about. They poke their beaks into each hole in
the sand looking for all the world like street people searching for cans in the
trash. Sandpipers hurry off in a group--a Blue Light Special at the sand flea
table was just announced.
I glance out into the surf just in time to spot a harbor
seal poking his head out of the foam. Curious fellow, he is watching me. I stop
walking to stare back.
My new friend disappears into the next wave, so I go back to
my browsing. That's when I find the rock. It's oval, about an inch or two long,
and worn smooth by years in the sand. My rock is probably a bit of low-grade
jade, with veins of white and brown. It has no real value, except for the
magic. I walk along rolling it between my fingers.
Wait a moment…what’s that noise? The beach vanishes and I'm
back in the office. I put the rock back in the drawer, next to the one from
Death Valley. Time to go back to work…this time, with a smile.
Somehow, I forgot the little pile of brain crud I left
behind on the beach for the next tide to wash away.
Guess I didn't need it, after all.
