Where Time Meets the Sea And Stays With Me
- Delphine
- Mar 1
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 7
I spend a lot of time caring for others, and I find it rewarding. Still, I’ve learned that if I don’t occasionally step outside and have a little fun, I start to lose perspective.
So, I went camping.
The night was spent at Crystal Cove along the California coast, standing on a bluff high above the ocean and watching the sun drop into the water, Catalina just visible in the distance. The horizon held its line as the light thinned.
The air turned cold after sunset — the kind of cold that sharpens your senses rather than driving you inside. I woke early to the sound of waves breaking on the shore below and headed down to the beach before most of the world was up.
I wasn’t the first one there.
A man’s footprints had already traced a path across the sand toward the rocky cliff at the southern end of the beach. Near the trail, on a driftwood log, there were two white ranunculus flowers. No stems. One dusted with sand, as if it had been dropped and picked up again — or not.
I stood there longer than I needed to.
After that, I explored the beach. Shallow tidal pools carved into the cliffside held anemones. Native flowers dotted the dunes. I photographed anything blooming where sand, rock, and saltwater meet. A large piece of well-weathered sea glass turned up near the waterline, clouded and smooth from time.
The waves hadn’t delivered much else — mostly seaweed — but I did manage to catch a photograph of a plover sprinting away from an incoming wave. Quick, alert, and gone.
Photo Gallery: Coastal native flowers photographed at Crystal Cove
By the time night came again, the air had cooled the same way it had the evening before. The ocean kept moving. Somewhere below the bluff, the tide rearranged the beach, erasing most of what had passed through it.
Walk with me at Crystal Cove
This video follows the path from the bluff down to the shoreline — past coastal wildflowers, through the tunnel beneath the highway, and along the beach to the tide pools. It was filmed on another morning at Crystal Cove.
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