Natural Science

Searching for Starfish in Kettle Cove, Cape Elizabeth

Once we got back to Portland, one of our missions was to find tide pools with cool sea creatures in them. While we were in the Bar Harbor area, we hadn't managed to catch low tide at any of the good spots.

One of the things we were excited to see was starfish. The last time we went to Maine, which I believe was about nine years ago, we would wake up in the morning and go down to the water and see hundreds of them.

I'm not sure what happened to them all, but we couldn't find them near Acadia and we couldn't find them near Portland. The best we could do -- and it was enough to entertain my son for quite a while -- was find lots of hermit crabs.

One of the many things I love about my favorite New Englander is his encyclopedic knowledge of music, and as we walked the rocks today, he pulled this song out, the first part of which is about tide pools:

When the ebbing tide retreats
Along the rocky shoreline
It leaves a trail of tidal pools
In a short-lived galaxy
Each microcosmic planet
A complete society

A simple kind mirror
To reflect upon our own
All the busy little creatures
Chasing out their destinies
Living in their pools
They soon forget about the sea...

Do they, though? Because I feel like I am in a tide pool of sorts. There's less and less room to move around in this love now. It's lonelier. But I still remember what it felt like to swim effortlessly in the vastness of it, and I wish desperately that we could get back to that sea of love together.

But it doesn't appear that we can.