Beach Horses

They say this is a private beach. I’m not supposed to be here. Yet I’m here and not bothering anything and nothing’s bothering me either. It seems the beach and I’ve agreed to share our privacy for now. I don’t want to disturb it and don’t want it disturbing me. I don’t believe in private beaches anyway. That’s such a stupid human rule. Perhaps the beach agrees or maybe doesn’t believe in me. Whatever the case may be, it’s working—probably because I’m up on this bluff hidden by a jacaranda tree in bloom, and the beach is down there attending to the ocean where any self-respecting beach should be.

I sit up on the hill and watch the beach. The water moves so lazily, pulsing in and out without a thought to whether someone owns the beach, to whether there’s a me, to whether anyone or everyone is there to see it moving in and out with all the grace creation gave it. I like the unselfconscious of nature. Sometimes I sit and try to breathe it in. Sometimes I just observe as I would a fine piece of art.

Off from the left four horses come. Who’s horses might these be? Don’t they know this is a private beach? Apparently they have some sort of special dispensation. They move like royalty—head high, walk smooth, the look falling down the nose. They are elegant in every pose. I can’t take my eyes away from them. Even the sky cannot compete with the way they fit the rhythm of the sea so naturally and at the same time hold their identity—each one separate, yet four horses there together.

Some people say that horses are dumb. Yet few folks I know can do so artfully, what I have seen theses horses do, be themselves and be in tune with everything around them.

I leaned back against that tree and watched the beach horses for the thirty minutes or so that they were there. Then I picked up my leather journal and my favorite pen. I opened a new bottle of water and began to write all that I learned that Saturday morning, watching beach horses on the private beach where I wasn’t suppose to be.

I went back the next week with four apples for my teachers. My teachers obviously felt no obligation to return. I ate the apples in their honor as I wrote in my journal.

The beach and I still agree to share our privacy for now.

—me strauss Letting me be