Waves of Emotion...

Yesterday was a day of high emotion for a lot of people. A hearing took place to find out what happened to cause the botched Gulf well, what is being done to seal the botched Gulf well, and what provisions are being made to help the victims of the gout's of oil billowing out of the botched Gulf well. This is pass number three at this blog entry. Thoughts of the Q&A with BP's CEO have been hanging towards the front of my gray cells since it took place, and the slightest touch on those thoughts sparks the embers of a rant. I don't want this entry to be a rant. This entry is about the above photo.

The photo is from a few months ago. A short trip over to the Tybee Island beach. I see the images on TV and the Internet that show a virtually vacant coastline marred by the murky streaks and large gummy masses of unrefined oil making its way onto the land along the Gulf coast. It made me think of my coastline. Where I live here in Savannah is right on the Atlantic. This morning while channel surfing for something at least marginally watchable, I remembered the pictures I had taken on our coast. So I came in here and opened the file containing my Tybee pictures. This photo stood out. The white froth of the waves lapping onto the sand. Even now when I gaze at it I can hear the relaxing roar of the waves. I can see the gulls, wings outstretched as they ride the thermals, calling out to each other in that melancholy seagull way. The coolness of the winds in deep contrast to the heat of the sun. A smell of salt spray hanging in the air. Then I thought of something greatly lacking in the Gulf coast images. People. Children building sandcastles and racing the waves up the sand. Moms reading trashy novels under broad brimmed sunhats. The colorful dots of beach umbrellas here and there. Teenagers throwing Frisbees back and forth or tossing around a football. None of that. Life as the inhabitants of the Gulf Coast know it has changed. For the foreseeable future. That doesn't just make me angry, it makes me sad.

I tried to Google a trajectory for the oil spill. Mainly, how it's advancing on the Florida panhandle. I have some great memories of a vacation I took when I was in the seventh grade. A good friend of mines mom invited me to go to Fort Walton Beach with them. The moms boyfriend owned a condo right on the beach. It was beautiful there. The sand was so white...they called it Sugar Beach, as I remember. I imagine that the oil spill will tarnish its sands just like the other beaches it has reached.

I look at my coast and I try to imagine what it would be like to have happen here what is happening for my neighbors...and I can't. I mean, I can imagine that it's a horrific thing to witness and be affected by.


But it's probably a lot worse...