Bumblebees and Butterflies

My gaze was transfixed by a clump of vegetation rooted in the sand distinguished by its tiny purple and white flowers. The flowers attracted bumblebees and butterflies. This was happening near my super fort.

So I sat on the beach and watched while I ate my breakfast. There was nothing else to do.

Such is life when you’ve just passed submitting 60 job applications and can’t get a job. That’s a statement of fact, not woe or lament. To rally, I start over every morning at the ocean and wait for a new kind of wave to roll in and take me somewhere new. That’s a fact, too.

I am more bumblebee man than butterfly man, but I could have sworn the butterfly was Oregon’s state butterfly, the monarch. Never before had I seen one on the beach. It is something beautifully incongruous to behold. It’s not supposed to be there, but there it was. I wish more people were like that., including myself.

If indeed it was a monarch, I sat on sacred socialist Oregon sand, near Oregon’s official state structure, the driftwood fort (constructed from wood produced by Oregon’s official state animal, the beaver), watched Oregon’s state butterfly, had Oregon’s official state sea shell, the hairy triton, in my pocket, while a jogger hauling like Steve Prefontaine, Oregon’s official state athlete, ran through the surf.

I damn near overdosed on Oregon right there.

Then a hummingbird whizzed by and went to the flowers!

I got dizzy, stood up, backed up a bit, then passed out, but thankfully, inside the fort. All was safe there.

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