Beachcombing at Miramar (7 page)

I stop on a wooden footbridge that spans a narrow waterway and listen to the harsh buzz of a marsh wren hidden in the reeds.
A snowy egret wades in the shoals, spearing prey with his sharp black bill. Bank swallows twist and turn in miraculous flight
over my head, catching insects on the wing. Cinnamon teal take off from the muddy embankment—and far off, a blackshouldered
kite perches silently on a post and waits.

All these species, and so many more, dwell together in this one fertile oasis without getting in each other’s way. Yes, the
egret feeds on frogs and fish, the swallows devour mosquitoes, and the kite kills snakes and rodents whenever it can. Sometimes
the peregrine falcon swoops down and snatches a duck out of the sky. But those are not acts of cruelty; they are the way of
survival in a natural world. What is cruel is the unnatural way we humans behave toward each other.

I think again of the young man in the red sports coupe, of his insulting gesture and his infuriating attempt to force me off
the road. I think, too, of the young woman at his side, laughing at his recklessness as if it were a virtue, and of how that
spurs him on. Each time she laughs, his foot presses harder on the gas pedal and the car spurts ahead, gaining on the car
in front, which he must pass, because if he doesn’t, the woman at his side may start to wonder if he really is the man he
wants her to think he is.

I wonder if he knows where he’s heading, or how, or why—this young man rushing toward his grave. He’s so sure he’s veering
south, past farms of artichokes, past fields of sheep grazing on the barren slopes above the sea. He’s so certain that he
is the center of the universe, that he is in control of all he surveys, when in fact he is no more than a flyspeck on a planet
hurtling through the sky.

When I was young, I read a poem called “This Dim and Ptolemaic Man,” by John Peale Bishop, and the lines come back to me now.
In his poem, Bishop depicts a farmer who saves enough money to buy a rattly Ford and how he feels “motion spurt beneath his
heels” as he drives hell-bent down the road:

Morning light obscures the stars.

He swerves avoiding other cars,

Wheels with the road, does not discern

He eastward goes at every turn

Nor how his aged limbs are hurled

Through all the motions of the world,

How wild past farms, past ricks, past trees,

He perishes toward Hercules.

For a long time after I read the poem, the line “He eastward goes at every turn” kept reeling through my brain, an enigma.
Why is the farmer going eastward? At last the answer dawned on me. He is going eastward because the earth is turning eastward;
he is a traveler on the spinning planet, even if he is too self-absorbed in his new-bought car to feel himself being “hurled
through all the motions of the world.”

The poem intrigues me because of the title: the way the poet joins “dim and Ptolemaic” to describe the egocentric nature of
man. Ptolemy, the ancient astronomer, declared that earth was a motionless body and that sun, moon, and planets revolved around
it at varying speeds. That view remained fixed in the minds of men for more than a thousand years—until a wiser astronomer
named Copernicus came along. Copernicus said that the earth was moving, rotating on its axis, orbiting the sun along with
the other planets. He reasoned that because man was moving with the earth, he couldn’t sense the movement at all.

But Copernicus sensed it—I have to believe he did. I believe he knew he was a passenger on the planet, that he was traveling
with the earth through the heavens, long before his calculations proved that he was right and Ptolemy wrong. I am convinced
that scientists like Copernicus are the painters and composers of the spheres. Like all artists, they begin with their hunches,
conjectures, and speculations—which arise from what they sense—and then they create the painting and the music so that the
rest of us can see and hear.

Galileo, gazing through his telescopes, constructed an even more detailed picture of the universe than Copernicus, and in
so doing enraged the religious zealots of his day. They forced him to recant his theories and imprisoned him in his own house,
under pain of death, until he died. I find it ironic that Galileo, who understood so well the motions of the world, was restricted
in his travels, while the dim and Ptolemaic churchmen of the Inquisition walked freely about the streets, never realizing
that they were “perishing toward Hercules.”

Four centuries have come and gone since the Holy Office put Galileo on trial for saying that the earth moves. But I have to
ask myself what separates the zealots of the Inquisition from the fanatics who drive the Coast Highway in their turbocharged
cars today. Their styles may differ, but their perspective is the same. They know nothing of the workings of the earth and
how it turns. They cling to their notion that the world exists for them, and they are perfectly willing to run over anyone
who gets in their way.

I have a conviction—one I can’t prove, but I believe it anyhow. I believe there is a clock within me, a living clock, and
it keeps pace with the pulse beat of the world. I hear the slow ticktock of the planet when I stand in a salt marsh or walk
the sands of Miramar, and I lose it the instant I slip behind a steering wheel. The moment I exceed the speed at which I was
born to move, I lose the tempo of the natural world and become like a singer who has lost the rhythm of his song.

What science gives, the combustion engine takes away. The former tells us what the universe looks like; the latter numbs us
to what we see. The faster we travel, the less we know. It’s as if speed itself is an infectious disease, deadly not only
because of the mangled bodies that lie by the side of the road but also because of the impenetrable barrier it erects between
ourselves and our world.

My thoughts are broken by a small bird that persists in paddling back and forth under the footbridge where I stand. He swims,
half-submerged, and I follow him from one side to the other, leaning over the wooden railing for a better look. Although I
have stood waiting and watching in this same place many times in the past, I can’t recall seeing this particular species before.
I note the black ring around his thick bill; that is something of a giveaway. I recall seeing a bird with that distinctive
marking in my field guide.

A man appears farther along the path, emerging from the bulrushes and pickleweed. He has a great shock of white hair and a
face so bronzed he looks as if he has been out in the sun since the day he was born. He is moving quickly, with a purpose;
he has a spotting scope on a tripod braced across his shoulder. He stops beside me and watches the ducklike bird that suddenly
dives and pops up like a cork about fifty feet away.

“A pied-bill grebe?” I ask.

“Yes,” the man says with the assurance of one who knows.

I ask him if he has seen anything else of interest, and he rattles off about twenty species, several of which I didn’t know
were in the marsh and a few I never heard of before. He announces that he has been up since dawn, driving from ocean to bay,
harbor to redwood forest, creek to reservoir, and that he has seen 136 species so far. He says he has one more site to visit,
a slough about twenty miles down the coast, where he hopes to find at least fifteen more species, raising his bird count to
more than 150 for the day.

I watch as he rushes off, wondering if he will reach the slough in time to meet his goal, for he will soon lose the daylight.
One hundred and fifty different birds! I wonder if it’s possible to see, really see, that many species in a single day.

I turn back to the pied-bill grebe. I watch him for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. When I feel I know him well, I leave the
marsh and climb a sandy bluff, arriving at the top as the underrim of the sun touches the unbroken line of the sea.

I watch the sun drop below the horizon. It sinks quickly, and I suddenly know that I have been as dim and Ptolemaic as the
farmer in his rattly Ford. For the first time in my life I am fully aware of the speed at which I am traveling through the
air. The sun is not setting; the earth is spinning away. In a matter of minutes it has pitched eastward a distance equal to
the diameter of the sun. And I am going eastward with it, going eastward through the night, through the day.

It occurs to me that perhaps the purpose of a sunset is to sweep self-delusion away. I have no sense of motion when the sun
is overhead, hanging in the sky. At high noon, earth and sun appear to be absolutely still. Even as the sun slips down, I
feel as though I am standing on a stationary planet. But when I see how the horizon rises to swallow the sun, I realize how
I have allowed myself to be deceived.

It’s dark when I arrive at my beach house. I drag a mattress out on the deck and lie on my back, watching the moon. I have
been watching it carefully ever since I arrived at Miramar, trying to solve its mystery. We have dispatched astronauts to
its surface, and for a while that seemed like such an enormous feat. But now that the wonder of the moon landing has worn
off, it seems more like a circus stunt, like so many clowns tumbling out of a tiny car, and the moon itself remains as elusive
as before.

Tonight, the moon is as full and bright and yellow as I have ever seen it. It appears to be climbing up the eastern sky; right
now it’s suspended over the crest of the coastal range. It looks to me as if the moon is following the path of the sun, traveling
from east to west, but I know that is self-deception, too. Earth and moon are both eastbound—except the earth and I are moving
faster, so it seems as if the moon is going the other way.

It’s late when I fall asleep. I’m awakened early by the shattering sounds and noxious fumes of Jet Skis. I stand on my deck,
surveying the ocean, watching the noisy machines bounce over the breakers like seagoing snowmobiles. They gather below my
beach house, where they multiply: two, then four, then eight, then twelve. The riders stand straight up in the cockpit and
drive directly into the swells; they vault over the crests and reverse direction in midair.

One of the riders is thrown from his perch like a cowboy from a bucking bronco. He does a double flip before crashing headfirst
into the sea. I assume he has broken his neck—but no, I see him swimming through the surf in pursuit of his runaway machine,
which is going in circles. He catches up, clambers back aboard, revs up the engine, and plows into an oncoming wave.

I wonder about these riders of the surf and the lengths to which they go to breathe excitement into their lives. They are
overcome with a sense of power because they have planted a combustion engine between their legs that enables them to leapfrog
over the waves. I would like to hail them ashore and tell them what I have so recently learned.

I would tell them that if they want thrills, they should throw away their toys and ride the greatest roller coaster of all,
the earth on which they dwell. And I would tell them that it will cost absolutely nothing because they gained admission free
of charge on the day they were born.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

—J
OHN
K
EATS

I
wake early, filled with resolve. I skip breakfast and take to the beach, determined to investigate the mystery that has
bothered me since I arrived at Miramar. I see it now, as I see it every morning from my deck—a spherical antenna that rises
like a giant mushroom from the headland about a mile away. I have decided to get as close to it as I can and find out for
myself exactly what it is doing there.

I have asked many people what it is, but they shrugged their shoulders or stared at me blankly and said they didn’t know.
Their indifference surprised me, for the antenna is the dominant landmark along this stretch of coast, towering over the bluff
on which it stands.

I pass through the harbor and follow a dirt path that comes to an abrupt end at a paved road. I step over a guardrail and
start up a steep incline. Almost at once I confront blazing red capital letters on a sign:

I continue on up the hill until I reach a chainlink fence with barbed wire across the top, encircling the installation, blocking
access from sea or land. Beyond the fence, I can plainly see the enormous dish, two smaller antennae, and several low buildings.
Suddenly a door to one building opens and a heavyset woman in a khaki uniform strides toward me.

“Can I help you?” she asks firmly from her side of the fence.

“I’m just curious,” I say. “What is this place, anyhow?”

“This is a radar station. We track missiles fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base.”

“Vandenberg Air Force Base! That’s four hundred miles away!”

“That’s correct.”

“Where do the missiles land?”

“Way out in the Pacific. Near an atoll. And now I must warn you that you’re trespassing on Air Force property.”

I would like to ask more questions, but her manner makes it clear that our conversation has come to an end.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

As I turn to leave, I see two surfers about fifty yards off to my right, skirting the installation. They are hiking up the
headland in their wet suits, their boards under their arms. I follow them along a well-worn trail until they disappear over
the edge of the embankment. When I arrive at that point, I stand for a moment, taking in the sweep of the rocky coast. Below
me, at the base of a steep path, is a pocket beach, by far the most beautiful of any I have come upon since I began hiking
the sands of Miramar.