Writing on the Natural World

part 12

Writing on the Natural World – and other things

Part 12

I like to get up early on these spring mornings in Key West and walk while the island is quiet – just roosters calling, delivery trucks and men showing up to work, and a few dog-walkers out early.  It’s light now by seven, and we have had clear skies and no extreme heat yet.  I sometimes walk down to the dock where the shrimp-boats used to come in and now there are expensive yachts docked.  This is where the manatees make their appearance. I’ve seen them often during the winter, nosing up to where a stream of fresh water comes into the salt of the Bight, two adults and a baby, their big brown slow-moving bodies just below the surface, their snouts with round nostrils coming up for air.  I think how fast we move, rushing around, getting from here to there – busy, active, too fast much of the time – and how these slow creatures fascinate and draw crowds to watch them as they move their huge rounded bodies so slowly through the water.  A reminder – slow down, take your time?  Manatee time is different from ours, but watching them suggests to me that going this slowly is also possible.  I take the hint – but continue my fast walk home.

Meanwhile, the Olympic torch is a hundred days away from its destination in Paris in July.  Everyone I know in Paris is planning to leave the city this summer and find respite in some country place, or by the sea.  I’m going there in two weeks, well before the Olympic frenesy begins, I hope.  The rush, the crowds, the races, the sheer speediness of it all…  Remember the manatees.

PS   On this Sunday morning, I went for an early swim in the ocean and was rewarded by the presence of an osprey perched on the high platform above the beach on which a couple of ospreys often make their nest.  She watched me as I swam in a shoal of minnows, accompanied by a swimming cormorant.  Such delight!

Thanks for reading.