4-25-05

Today I walked to the beach to watch the sunset. Standing on a cliff overlooking the world, I saw the body of a large harbor seal down on the beach, about fifteen feet from the water line. Its body was almost the color of the sand, meaning it was dry enough to have been there a while. I squinted at it to see if it had a head. I've seen a few headless harbor seals in this area, the latest being a headless pup I saw at Pillar Point a couple days ago. I have been wondering lately who or what would take only the head. Seems to me a mammalian predator would rather have the body where the bulk of the meat is and a bird would not be strong enough to sever the head completely and carry it away, which leads me to suspect the most dangerous species of all.

With the sun almost touching the water and the tide coming in slowly, I made my way down to the beach to investigate. I got to about 20 yards away when the seal suddenly looked up at me. I stopped. We stared at each other for a moment. That's when I noticed about half dozen of his counterparts floating in the tidepool nearby, heads bobbing just above the surface of the water, noses pointed at me. I hesitated for a moment, then sat down and looked away. A moment later, I looked back and the seal on the beach was still looking at me, but as soon as I looked, he turned away. I stared for a while, then he looked back, so I looked away again. We played this game for a minute or two, then I watched his fellows play in the water, having forgotten me for the moment. I wondered at thier seemingly human expressions and realized that they have eyebrows like a dog, which they use to communicate.

I wondered if the big guy was just braver than his buddies and wanted to nap, or whether he was sick or injured. I lay back on my elbows and took in the scene for about ten minutes. The waves, the sky, the seals, the wind, the gulls, the salty air in my lungs. Soon I felt as though I were one of the seals, enjoying springtime on the beach. I marveled at the way the waves relentlessly marched toward the shore, yet the waterline remained consistent, or moved slowly with the tide. I stared into the sky and tried to visualize the stars, hidden just beyond the dusk.

Then, when the sun had slid most of the way beneath the horizon, a man came walking toward us. He was short and thick and wore glasses. He looked like a Silicon Valley type after a long day of writing code. He walked as though there was much on his mind, with a look in his eyes which spoke of unresolved issues that he hoped would come into perspective; here where the thin gaseous atmosphere meets the thick liquid atmosphere in the foam which bubbles where the waves reach over to touch themselves.

And so he walked, staring at the ground. We watched him as he walked past me, toward my fellow seals; oblivious, I assumed. My head, (from the beach) and thier heads (from the pool) swiveled in unison to our large brother laying on the sand, who played dead as the man walked right past him, apparently not noticing. He continued to the edge of the beach, and stared at the sky for a while. I watched the man intently, as did the beached seal and his buddies in the tide pool peanut gallery. We all seemed to be thinking "How narrow is modern man, how consumed with himself, how unaware of the rhythms of the earth."

The man turned and began to walk back, sending the seals in the pool back underwater and into the deep end. I grinned at the man, waiting for the moment of realization. He got about ten feet away from the beached seal, then looked up at it and nearly jumped backward, at which point the seal ceased playing dead and looked up pleadingly. The man awkwardly walked up to the cliff face and back toward me, giving the seal wide berth this time. He came up to me and asked "Did I walk right past it?" I nodded and laughed. He shook his head and walked on.

I stayed for a while as the sky grew dark, except for a thin patch of salmon-colored light at the horizon. I wondered if the big guy would roll his fat ass back into the surf, but he didn't budge. His floating buddies stayed put, other than a pup who scampered occaisionally onto the beach and then back into the surf while his mother floated cautiously nearby. The wind suddenly grew cold. I stood up and walked home.

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