How fragile feeling it is to sit on the rocks between the sky and the forest and the sea. The shattered crab shells from seagull feasts, the tiny pimple crustaceans on the oyster shells, the hawk soaring above, the ocean lapping at the mountains, the air moving trees to the rhythm of the earths rotation, the ants crawling across the wooden deck, the dog laying at my feet. The macro. The micro.

Dana shakes my hand as I crunch the little pimply crustaceans under my boots. I lie and tell him I’m travelling with my husband. I do not go on the forest path he shows me. I am instantly aware of the coyote spray in my fanny pack, and my head says to me: “so wild and free you are, unable to even trust a handshake on the beach” and yet I know that I’ve been a cloud before and I will be again- giant and heavy and massive but floating above it all, all the Danas and the men of the world are specks of matter, floating in the dirt and water. I’ve been the seagull and will be again, tilting my head back for full throated racket, my whole body straining to laugh as loudly as I can. I have been the seagulls feast and I will be again: broken, emptied, fuel for others. I have been the macro and the micro. I have been the mountains and the sky and the sea, and I will be again. Dana points to the forest trail and I calculate it all: the man, the coyote spray, my fanny pack- how accessible is it? How vulnerable am I? Now, here, in the body of a woman I am not the clouds or the mountains or the crab or the seagull. I am alone on a rocky beach wishing to be far from the things of man, only to have one stick his hand out with a friendly hello and a handshake.