Sand

On a recent trip to the beach we walked along the shore, enjoying salt air. It was warm, even hot, which was odd for the end of November, though not really that odd. The beach had plenty of people enjoying the day.

At the beach the sky looks so much bigger because the horizon isn't cluttered with trees, hills, buildings, people. The world appears flatter and more grand.

There were abandoned houses on one side of the beach, falling apart next to cliffs. On the other side there was the ocean, with gentle waves washing up. The weather was calm and several boats were unnervingly close to shore. I wondered if they knew there were rocks out there. The sand near the abandoned houses and cliffs was golden and coarse as you expect sand to be. We walked along as I looked for driftwood. There wasn't any. I am not sure if that was odd. Isn't there supposed to be driftwood? Or does that only happen after a storm, or when there has been a shipwreck? There was plenty of dried seaweed in clumps, flies swarming over them. Near the water the sand grew fine grained and smooth. It lost much of its color and looked gray, especially when the sunlight reflected off it. It was shiny like wet glass and undulated in mild hills, piled into millimeter high ridges by the wave action. The photo above is desaturated because, well, there wasn't much color in the original to begin with. The one below had its saturation increased. I don't like it quite as much, but I am putting it in for comparison. You can see there wasn't much color there to begin with.