Skittering across the mud, a tiny hermit crab lunged at invisible-to-me prey. A few inches away, a crab with its shell covered in algae started digging. Caddisfly tubes made of rocks and shell bits poked up all around.
As I was observing this tiny tableau, I felt something on my foot. Something very much alive, moving, and animal-like.
“Ah, ah, ah!” I yelped, reaching down and trying to get it off. I spotted a long translucent creature and flicked it, only to have it hop up and land elsewhere on my leg. I finally got it off, much to my relief. As it turned out, it was an itty bitty shrimp and the shallow water extending to the horizon was full of them. I ended up with them in my shoes a couple more times that afternoon.
Despite my panic about having shrimp in my shoes, the low tide flats of Breakwater Beach in Cape Cod offered an awesome opportunity to look at nature up-close – really close. It was easy to miss the vast, wriggling diversity of life in the shallow water and sand unless you looked carefully. Once you did start looking, it was everywhere.
Fortunately, looking closely is a skill that I’ve practiced a lot in the past few years. With the early days of COVID minimizing travel, my family discovered the power of the small. We spent an afternoon hunting down dandelions in our yard and making dandelion jelly. The trails behind the local nature center became familiar in a way they hadn’t before, as we got to know the bends in the stream, the rock formations on the trail, and the weird left-over machinery of its previous incarnation. To be able to see “enough” in a seemingly shrunken world, we had to shift our perspective.
While the world has (mostly) shifted back to pre-COVID life, I’ve continued working from home. As I tend to get very antsy if I’m inside all day, I go for walks in the morning and at lunch. Along the way, I take in the colors of the neighbor’s flowers and try to notice the shifting colors of the lichen on the tree bark. Wanting to get to know the plants better, I’ve started using the PictureThis plant ID app to get to know the plants along the way.
Recently, a foraging class my older son and I took together brought this ability even more into relief. With a guide, our group wandered through a regional park. The guide pointed out treasures in plain sight, from serviceberry bushes full of fruit to mock strawberries on the ground. He even shared delicious pesto made of mustard garlic, an invasive plant that most gardeners snd ecologists curse out.
When I got home, I realized the berries that stained the sidewalk in front of my neighbor’s house were delicious, largely uneaten mulberries. I started collecting handfuls on my runs to bring home to the kids. (Running with a handful of berries is really awkward!) On a ramble through a section of the street I usually don’t go down, I recognized wild blackberries and wine berries.
Observing things closely has helped me appreciate so much around me, from right at home to partway across the country. It’s amazing what we can see if we only look.