My Sea.

The other night I took the garbage out. This was not as remarkable as my wife may find it. I take the garbage out as often as necessary. Sometimes volume and sometimes smell will inspire my trip outside to the can. This night it was a combination of both. The nine o’clock sun was setting and the sky was cloudy, blue and red. It was nice. Somehow weaving its way through the stench of my trash was the smell of the sea. It must have been low tide, as I could smell the briny water and heated sand and mud and the creatures that dwell in both.


This is my favorite smell. It is the smell of my life. It is the smell of my youth and my life today. It reminds me of standing in line for the Scrambler at the Waterland Festival as a kid. It reminds me of early morning and late evening water-ski trips in high school to the sand pits hoping for some flat water. It reminds me of fishing and crabbing and sitting in guest moorage drinking beer in the sun. It reminds me of dog walks and family walks and squiding off the pier. It reminds me crisp autumn mornings mowing Beach Park and warm summer afternoons looking for spider crabs and perch along the pilings when they both excited me more than they do now.

This smell and this sea is my home. It is where my Dad’s ashes lie and where mine will go when the time comes. Today, my sea serves to make taking the trash out something more. Like nothing else, it has the power to give my life perspective. As I get bogged down by life’s have-to-do’s and running-lates, the late spring smell of my sea in the evening brings my life back in order. It is easy to get mired in unimportant things. As human animals, we struggle and chase and want. We spend an unseemly amount of time running, with tunnel vision, towards a future of more running. Sitting still, smelling, listening and feeling that life is pretty good, right here, right now, is necessary for both the piece and state of mind that make life truly wonderful.

It’s a little odd to me that a fairly routine trip to the garbage can inspired thoughts like these, but maybe the thoughts needed to be found and perhaps any vehicle would do. Either way, I’ll take them when they come and I appreciate them as old friends. I have a lot of great, old friends, but these thoughts and the smell of my sea are some of the best. As my wife will testify, I am not exceptionally fussy about my choice in friends. But as I have come to learn, a man can never have too many friends and I’ll take all that I can get.