It was a breezy 20 degrees. The sun was shining. The snow on the mountains glistened in the distance. And 3 friends and I walked up to Jericho Beach to participate in a tree-planting event hosted by Evergreen.
We arrived an hour after the event started, keen on lending a hand, getting dirty, and really appreciating things that grow.
To our surprise, the event had garnered so many volunteers, that nearly all of the 4,000 trees had been planted in the hour before our arrival (And the event had five more hours to go!).
It was an enormous victory for this little initiative run by do-gooders trying to make – and keep – a metropolitan city crisp, clean, and green. We were ecstatic that so many people, young and old, came out to make our city great. But although this was a huge victory for Earth Day and for the organization, we were admittedly bummed. We had been so excited to take part.
All was not lost.
The day was beautiful. There where thousands of people at the beach. The air was salty. And the fun with ripe for the picking.
The next best thing to planting trees on Earth Day, we thought, would be just to spend the day outside, in the Earth, loving every minute of what Mother Nature offered us.
We started with some hula-hooping.
Though you'd think my plus-size hips would make me a natural, Dante took me down 8 times out of 10 in our hula-off.
And I limped out of there with a slightly turned ankle after trying to show off how I could hula hoop around my ankle. (note: it turns out that I canNOT hula hoop around my ankle.)
Next: playing on the beach.
First we half-burried each other. Then we thought it would be much more fun to bury our friend Mike, and promptly made him into a sand surf board. It was all fun and games until the tide came in, so we let him break free before the tide brought him out to sea.Next up: fries and popcorn from the concession stand. Nothing says "beach day" then eating crud from a concession stand. It was disgustingly overpriced and generally stale. But somewhow, it always tastes oh-so-good!
We headed back to the beach for a rousing game of frisbee, and we all perfected our moves for our upcoming Ultimate Frisbee season. Well, "perfected" might be a strong word. I got a few good hammer throws in there. But my third "flick" went awry and nearly decapitated a breast-feeding baby.
So our game promptly ended.
The entire day was filled with this general lazy funness. We dabbed a little in this. A little in that. We caught ladybugs. We went knee deep into the ocean and competed to see who could last the longest before we were too cold. We found seashells. We walked along the rocks in our bare feet. We bought ice cream at the ice cream truck.
It was a wonderful day to be alive.
Thank you, Earth.
You are amazing.
