A Sea Slice

I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community today.

       From reading my posts, even over the years, you may or still may not know that I am an "immersion" kind of person. Whatever I do, I fill up with that topic and fling myself into it with enthusiasm. For example, when I had a horse and was riding, I subscribed to every horse magazine I could find, and hung out at every farm store that sold tack, horse "snacks", grooming tools, etc. I was crazed to learn as much as I could. When I traveled with students, I researched and had my students research many things about the place we were visiting, people and habitat stories, science concepts, history. I know that sometimes the thrill of traveling is in the discovery, but I wanted all of us to be ready to discover more than we already knew, to add more layers of expertise.

      Do you do this? Now I'm digging deeper into the sea, this particular part called the Gulf of Mexico, an island named Captiva. It's my fifth time here, and I will be alone until the rest of the family arrives later in the week. I've walked, sat, watched and sketched, photographed and read. I've sifted the sand, written a few poems, noted observations, learned quite a bit about anoles. Some of this is my fascination with how nature works. Having never lived in this habitat, I want to know how it works, and I only have two weeks to experience it. 
       I'm reading Henry Beston's The Outermost House, a dream of a book for me. I've read it numerous times. He writes: "Touch the earth, love the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and the dawn seen over the ocean from the beach." 
        A salty slice indeed this time.