The other day we saw five eagles all at once. Three were on the beach near the dead seal just up the beach, which has since then begun stinking. The seal. The other two eagles were in a snag about fifty yards back from the beach. I didn’t have my camera with me, so Gary and I just stood and stared for a long time from a respectful distance.
Not all surprises are so delightful.
A story I’ve sent out too many times has just been rejected again. Some of the best literary journals in the country have rejected it. Sometimes they send me a note about how they almost took it or they liked it and were sorry. Today a journal that I submitted to last year (344 days ago) rejected it with only a form rejection. It is a great journal I have subscribed to and they receive thousands of submissions. But after keeping a story for a few days shy of a year, I really think they could have coughed up something better than “Thank you for your patience.”
I am not patient. Another story was rejected recently with the note: “Our staff especially admired the sisters’ personalities. We suggest slowing the pace of the story and really taking time to develop the many themes in the story.” I had recently spent a lot of time carving that story back in order to speed the pace up.
Maybe a form rejection is better?
Nope.
There were no bald eagles in Arch Cape when we moved into my great grand aunts’ home. At least there were none that we noticed.
This morning, an eagle stood near a dead albatross. It’s the second dead albatross we have seen on our shore since 1979. Our biologist neighbor didn’t believe we’d found that first bird until Gary took him out and showed him the body on the sand. “That’s a black-footed albatross,” he said then. If John was right, we found a rare bird. Dead, though.
Alive, a black-footed albatross has a wingspan of 6-7 feet. The eagle we saw this morning was full grown, but the other day when we saw five, at least one was a “baby”—full size, but still in juvenile plumage.
A friend suggested that I consider writing nonfiction.
I thought I was already doing that.
I don’t know why that drift log has red paint.
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 
At the risk of turning into a Jan Priddy groupie, I’ll comment on yet another post. For what it’s worth, I’m following you as someone whose writing I admire and who I view as being “ahead of me” on this journey. You are already succeeding in ways I don’t even know how to try at yet. (Brevity blog?! I view that as something that would make me feel I’d “arrived” in some way.) Anyway, thanks for sharing your journey. I’m chronicling mine at liveloveleave.com if you are interested in checking out a fellow traveler. I’m also moving from the desert to a beach in a few months–other side of the country–so I’m on a journey toward daily beach walks as well, and your writing is helping connect me to that future before I get there. Thanks!
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Oh, my! Thank you so much. It is a conflict between my achievement and my ultimate goal. I have been writing all my life and seriously since 1990. I have students better published than I am.
I started too late? I have grown into my size? I am unlucky? I fail to devote the energy necessary to line-by-line revision?
All of the above, I suspect. But I still love to write. Thank you for reading!
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And, yes, writing for Brevity is an honor. I sometimes cannot believe my good fortune.
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