I'm Heartbroken She Said

Yesterday I went to the ocean because  it seemed a good place to go to get used to an altered reality. The day was mild enough so that someone had made a small sandcastle, now beset by the late-day tide. Alongside it long ditches were dug in the sand that I didn’t recognize as letters until I stepped back some:  An ‘S.’ An ‘O. Another ‘S'. 'SOS' the letters kept spelling to the empty sky. Distress. Help us.Several seagulls came in for a landing, then hurried along on their little orange legs, muttering to themselves. Only one settled and stood looking out over the water, like a person trying to consider the bigger picture.I saw a dead fish with only a head left for flesh. The thin membrane of its empty skin held only a backbone and ribs. I looked and looked at that delicate spine, along whose length was written that same familiar pattern we see in our own bodies, the same pattern we see along the keel of boats both great and small: a central element with radiating spurs. So we design our boats to look like our bodies; we repeat in what we make the design used in making us.I watched the waves for as long as I could see them, the white foam curling along their crests before they sank down and it seemed me as though a great hand was zipping them shut like so many body bags. That’s the mood I was in despite the jokey tone of yesterday’s post. I think, like that seagull, I too need to fix on the bigger picture.