Thrashing white

I arrived on Block Island in the middle of a pretty bitter snowstorm. Snow that actually collects is rare on Block Island and this was a heavy enough storm that we had white ground out there for a couple of days before it melted. At the end of my time out there, the last three days, the temperature dropped suddenly and the wind picked up, making being outside pretty unbearable. The weather itself was gorgeous, but it seriously was too cold to do anything. I am sure that the moisture that is always present in island wind added to the situation. Those were the days when my house shook all night, being throttled by the wind. That temperature drop led to the ocean freezing, so it had to be drastic. Even the islanders were shocked by what had happened.

But right at the mid-point of my time, there was a random storm that lasted one day only, and it was all about the wind. There was some rain too, but the wind was so strong that some of my actions on that day (walking out onto the jetty, for example, with towers of spray rising up around me from the pounding ocean) are a bit questionable. But I didn’t care. It was an exhilarating storm, and it put the ocean into a total frenzy. I have never seen it like that, and I’ve seen some pretty bad weather in my day. The ocean, at times, appeared to be entirely white. This was not about white-capped breakers rolling into the shore, one after the other. There was no time between waves, they just kept crashing, and thrashing and pounding into one another, as far as the eye could see. The roar was so loud that you could feel it in your DNA. I went to Crescent Beach and climbed over the dunes to get a closer look, and the wind was so strong that first of all, the air was full of sand. I hadn’t counted on the sand. I worried about my camera, but I should also have been worrying about my eyes. I had to bend my body into an almost perpendicular shape just to deal with the wind. And once I reached the crest of the dunes, the wind was so strong that I couldn’t do anything but squat down to try to get some protection. It was nuts. And awesome. I talked to myself (and the storm) the whole thing. I was very articulate. I was exclaiming things like, “Holy SHIITE MUSLIMS.” and “JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH.: The view from the top of the dunes gave me a long frightening view of what was going on on Crescent Beach, the big wide sweep of sand, filled with tourists in the summer. A perfect beach. But on that day, there was no more beach. The ocean had poured into the gap, and pounded right up against the dunes, directly below where I was standing. The waves, as they gathered strength and height (they had to be 15 foot waves), showed a sickly green color, streaked with white foam, the power gathering within as it curled over into thunderous surf. There was no consecutive rhythm to what I was seeing, as you often feel on the beach, even on wild days. The surf may be huge, but there is some rhyme to what you are seeing. Wave after wave after wave. This was war. It was so beautiful that I felt like I dissolved into the sand, the roaring air, I couldn’t get enough. The jetties of the Old Harbor were far over to the right, with the harbor in between the long arms of rock. Even the harbor was rough on that day, although it was nothing compared to what was going on right beyond the protection. I could see the mountains of spray jetting up into the air, from the waves smashing against the far jetty. Sometimes the entire long jetty appeared to have a flowing white veil, the waves were that long and that consistent, it took over the entire jetty (unlike normally, when you get a little froth of spray at this end, then a couple minutes, then another froth of spray at the other end). The channel marker at the end of the jetty took on magical faery-lands-forlorn properties, standing up brave and true in the teeth of the storm.

People talk about safe harbors in a metaphorical way. But on that day, I could see its reality. I couldn’t calm down for the rest of the day. I came to my senses and realized that the dune I was standing on was being eaten away by the ocean and I really should get away from that ocean. It was beautiful, yes, but human beings have no business trying to cozy up to such a sea. Keep your distance, say a prayer for the sailors and fishermen, and go the hell home.