There is a roar to the sound machine in the bay leaf’s room that reminds me of the ocean. It has this deep resonance, like when water is pulling away, bringing all the pebbles with it. I prefer the basalt beaches–the way the tide moves over smooth rocks. The sound I hear through the walls reminds me of the Pacific, but it isn’t water at all. Bay’s machine is set to ‘desert wind’. It’s possible my subconscious just doesn’t have enough desert experience. I’ve only been once.
I grew up near the water, going to Carkeek Park to pick tiny crabs out of seaweed clumps. I’d fill my pail so full of rock crabs that by the end of the day, they’d just walk over the shells of their comrades and fall right back out.
The water is so cold, it’s like hailstones under the skin. I can feel the slime of seaweed floating against my legs. Even though we’re no longer connected to the ocean, I can still feel the soft pulsing of the tides. I’m in a little pool made just for one. My red pants are rolled and scrunched above my pale knees. It hasn’t done much, the wadded up corduroy is still sopping wet. Just like my shirt is wet, my arms are wet, my hair is wet, dripping, and filled with sand.
When the pool formed, I stuck a toe in an anemone. I’d been gentle, but as a six year old, the reward was worth the harm. My toe was now sucked inside. The sensation was both exhilarating and gross. I had a new pail in one hand: green, plastic, and already leaking seawater. I had deposited all the day’s finds in there: a dozen crabs, a piece of sea glass, some long dead bull kelp. I considered trying to pull the anemone off it’s rock and plop it in there, but a toe was about the most destructive I cared to be. The roar of Puget Sound covered everything. It smelled of brine and rotting crustaceans. Salt stained my eyes and my tongue, and even though I knew better, I’d slide my fingers into my mouth and suck them clean.
There were dozens of these ponds. Low tide would reveal a mob of children–scrambling over barnacle-covered rocks, trying to stake their claim. We instinctively avoided sharing. There were enough pools to go around and not one of us was interested in buddying up; all of us earning our little marine plots with barnacle-knicked ankles and sopping wet clothes. A book of matches, yellow and red, was stuck to a half-submerged razor clam. My legs were numb, my fingers had lost all color, but I knew I’d be out there till dark.
The sound machine has a steady thrum, like if you closed your eyes, sat on the sand, and listened to the ocean. Maybe that’s how the desert is too. You sit on the sand and listen to the wind. I wonder what my daughter thinks about when she hears it: which kind of sand. If she’s anything like me, the sand will be rain and she’ll be covered in foam. She’ll be far away from other people, staking out her territory, toes plugging up all the green and purple anemones.
