Stormy Days
FEBRUARY 27, 2023
It's been one of those weeks where nothing really went to plan. Nothing went terribly wrong, just a series of little things. Someone demanded time I didn't have, someone else didn't answer a message with info I was waiting on, an opportunity went to another person because I wasn't quick enough to jump. Even the weather didn't seem to want to play ball. I'd been watching the surf forecasts for a week and it seemed the planets would align for big swell, high tide and me not being at work or uni. The little daily hiccups had seemed bearable because I had something to look forward to: a morning out with the camera. But in the twenty-four hours before my date with myself the forecasts shifted. The swells were now appearing when I was busy. The tides didn't match. The storms would arrive when I was being held captive indoors. By the time I would be free the weather would be cleared.
Wednesday morning rolled around and I went out with the camera anyway. If nothing else it was time outside and I needed that. As I sat on the rocky shelf off Boat Harbour tucked in under a small cliff I heard a great crash as an unusually large set hit the furthest point of the headland. Not the big swells I was hoping for but a decent size. I got some photos. But then I saw the strangest thing. The crash brought hundreds of bread-and-butter-plate sized black crabs scurrying up and away from the ocean and toward me. I jumped up on higher ground. But they didn't make it as far as my perch. As the swell died away they scrambled back where they came from. The next crash brought them hurrying toward me yet again. And, yet again, as the swell receded they made their way back into their waiting rock crevices.
I think I must have sat there for a good half hour watching them race back and forth, seemingly with nothing more to do than respond to the crashes around them. They didn't seem stressed, it was just the way it was. It made me think. Sometimes life is full of booms and crashes. Maybe the crabs are onto something. Just going with the flow might not be such a bad thing.