I was surprised when I got to the beach this morning by just how much stuff had washed up on the beach overnight. And I started thinking about the post I wrote a while back about a similar mess. Some days feel messier than others, for sure. And sometimes, when we're exhausted, waking up to a mess makes us want to pull the covers over our heads and go back to sleep. There's just so much of it and we feel like we can do so little about it.
So I walked around for a while and got closer, and took this picture.
What if, instead of taking in the enormity of the mess all at once, we looked at it more closely - just a part of it - to see what it is actually made of? What looks like a big green blob from far away contains many different colors and textures and sizes of plant and animal life. Some of it, like the deep purple of the kelp, is really beautiful. Some, like an unidentifiable blob, is intriguing. Some, like a plastic straw (seen today but not pictured), is heartbreaking. And this is where we can find hope. Find one beautiful thing, or one thing that intrigues you, or one thing that breaks your heart. Look at it. Appreciate it. It just might be that it stirs in you some compassion, some memory, some power to move forward rather than going back to sleep.
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