Birds on the Water

As it's happened, I've marked many of my life's pivots by moves to places near water: I moved to Bolinas when I came back to California after living in Colorado for a number of years; the coast of Santa Cruz when my father was ill and to Stinson Beach after my first trip to India. All afforded me quick access to wild and beautiful natural areas, hiking trails and views of wildlife and birds. I took a lot of solace in these places before taking a big breath and getting on with things in more urban areas.

 I moved to Alameda after my third trip to India. The latest moved I would not have predicted. I knew little about the East Bay Island city between Oakland and Bay Farm Island, nor was it on my radar as particularly natural and wildlife friendly. I was moving for a human relationship not a geographical one...so I was that much more excited upon moving and soon discovering I now lived within walking distance of a bird sanctuary. How cool was that?  The Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary, a protected swatch of salt marsh and wetlands on the edge of a Crown Beach, is full of shorebirds— godwits, stilts, kildeer, gulls, curlews— and is fast becoming my favorite respite from it all.

"I caught a long wind/long life wind/I got to know the sky but it didn't know me/I got to see the land and land on top the sea/be the bird be the key/" —Feist, "Caught a Long Wind" from 'Metals"