The Myriad and the Particular (2)

My beach friend found his two bottles, but when he unfurled the papers inside, neither one said anything surprising, or romantic, or even very interesting. Perhaps most people aren't terribly imaginative, but it doesn't stop us from sending messages and hoping someone will finally notice our tiny voice in its glass container, or on the Facebook page.

I sat on the beach made of millions of voiceless shells, thinking about human beings and their endless longing for connection, their almost-boundless capacity for hope; about the beauty of this peaceful sea that had gently cast up two fragile floating arks and about the thousands of bodies taken by the tsunami on the other side of the world, the thinner and thinner voices vainly crying for help coarsely mirrored in the cries of the gulls overhead.

Eventually it became too much, all this consideration of the many. And so my eye, seeking relief, kept noticing the individual: the bloom on a wild galliardia beneath the boardwalk down to the beach, the dead pelican, the stranded jellyfish, the horseshoe crab lifted out into deeper water, the subtle differences between cockle shells.

And in the airports, tired of reading, I pulled out my sketchbook and drew the people waiting alongside me: sleeping, resigned, fatigued, trying to go away and trying to come home.

 

Only hope can keep me together/
Love can mend your life/
Or love can break your heart/
I'll send an S.O.S. to the world/
Message in a bottle...

Comments

[Kim]

I have been having some trouble in contemplating the terrible tragedy, too. My thoughts always turn to the personal. I worry about the mothers and the children who have been left alone.

Thanks for sharing the drawings. I love these. Even without color.

[Vivien]

Fascinating photos of shells on beaches and the explosion of beauty - reminds me of a beach in Norfolk, eastern England, where the tide goes out about half a mile and leaves all sorts of shells, some of which I collected and still have in a bowl.

And yes, these scenes are such a contrast to what merciless nature can do, as in Japan. But the nuclear fear is man-made - maybe one good thing that can come of the disaster is that there'll be a reduction of nuclear power, with the awful consequences when it goes wrong - decades, maybe centuries of pollution. Though many governments see nuclear power not just as useful, but as a status symbol.

Very good drawing of reclining man in hat.

[Marja-Leena]

I love these two posts, Beth - a great title, the gorgeous photos, the wonderful sketches and your thoughts on the tragedy and our capacity for hope, which I'm thinking about a lot too like everyone these days.

[dale]

(o)

[Jean]

So beautiful, thank you for sharing this. It's exciting to watch your photographs and drawings getting more and more powerful with practice. I too have felt overwhelmed in the past few days and found my thoughts and perceptions coming back to the close and the particular, because - without wanting to shirk the terrible and what we perhaps can do to help - that is really all we can deal with most of the time.

[renkat]

Inspiring - as always.

[Leslee]

Wonderful. I had Message in a Bottle already playing in my head from the last post. I love the sketches - and yes, it's your noticing these things, these individual humans in a passing moment in our short lives, that's so powerful.

[Natalie]

(o)

[marly youmans]

Like all your travel pieces and pictures... And yes, Japan keeps intruding, doesn't it? My father, the scientist, always thought nuclear power so clean and efficient and safe, but I am afraid it is only safe if we can get some powerful angels unconcerned with money to take charge.