It sneaks up on you ... trash (among other things), or it did me, at First Beach the other day ... a world mounded with seaweed, in turn littered with debris. At first, walking through the mounds, I saw the usual stuff: clam shells (some whole, most broken), a few crabs. It's the color I was noticing, I think, as much as anything. The blend of creams and tan on red and brown — but, wait, that's a tan can. A has-been hydrangea. A lost sole. A snowy white coffee lid, not a snowy white shell.
Once I'd noticed it — the trash — it was impossible not to notice it. I saw trash everywhere ... how had I missed it just moments before?? And it reminded me (somehow, however that works) of a scene I'd seen just days before at Staples, in nearby Middletown, in the parking lot, where a seagull had found treasure in the trash. It is possible ...
In his (or her) case it was a banana, a whole one, and he/she was struggling to pick it up in his beak. He/she could do it (!!), though it was awkward, not easy, a heavy load — like trying to pick up a banana with chopsticks?? He (it's just easier to say "he") would start to fly off, get up in the air a bit, then drop the banana, again and again, not on purpose, I don't think, unless he was giving the banana the same treatment as a clam on the beach. It looked accidental ... and utterly futile ... but, either way, deliberate or not, the repeatedly-dropped-thus-increasingly-squishy banana attracted the attention of other gulls who flew in to help. Yeah, right. They wanted to nose in (beak in??) on the other gull's find, to take a chance at lifting off with his banana, as I sat cracking up in my car at the adjacent gas station. Ultimately, a car (another one, not mine) came by — the gulls waiting until the last possible second to get out of the way — and flattened the banana, so the whole gang partook of the oozing remains. Who knew gulls liked bananas??
Anyway, the trash at First Beach the other day reminded me of it/that, as I stood amid the squishy red mounds the size of hay bales (hence the need for the seaweed harvester, under wraps beside the carousel) taking in the crash of the waves ...
