Freedom with the Seagulls: The Engagement, Part 1
Cohasset, MA, 1983
Freedom with the Seagulls: The Engagement, Part 1
By Susan Fusco-Fazio
We walked down the driveway, looked ahead and noticed that the fog from the previous day had completely cleared. Paul took my hand before we crossed the main road of Atlantic Avenue, which wasn’t a busy main road since it ran parallel to the ocean in Cohasset. A road with a view, I thought, when I took my walks from the house to the rocky beach where the abandoned cottage sat. We would say it was abandoned, because we never saw any sign of life coming or going from the small grey cottage with red trim on its door and windows. The cottage had been placed directly level to the shoreline and sat on what looked like pure sand, but must have had soil mixed into it because tall grasses, beach roses and wildflowers grew there. There was mostly sand and rocks everywhere with a sandy path that hardly ever had tire tracks, though on rare occasions we saw a car there and figured someone must have checked on the little cottage from time to time. This would remain a mystery to Paul and I. We would gaze at this particular view everyday from the large bay window in our living room and from the smaller one in our makeshift bedroom in the hallway. The cottage weathered all the storms we had lived through thus far in our apartment, one of three rentals in the big stone and cement house on the hill that we simply called Ned’s house; since he owned it and lived there in most of the house with his wife Alice.
Once we crossed the divide from Ned's house and the beach, Paul let go of my hand and we embarked on our rocky beach walk. Each of us had a bit of bounce in our step that morning, reflecting the lift we felt on the day after we decided to get married and became engaged to one another. Feeling celebratory and playful, Paul stopped walking and turned around to look at me.
“See if you can do what I do, and step on every rock I step on,” he said.
“All right. I can do that!” I said.
He added, “ You have to copy me exactly.”
It was not unusual for us to make a game out of how we interacted with each other in nature. Paul brought out the kid in me, and I in him. We felt free and playful whenever we were outside together. I watched as Paul put his right foot out onto a large rock and then brought his left foot toward a smaller one, this time only touching it with his forefoot. I followed along.
There were many rocks on this beach and usually no people. We referred to this beach as rocky beach, although we weren’t aware of it having any official name. It was not considered to be a real beach; not one that anyone would stop to spend the day at, except maybe those who lived in homes directly opposite of that stretch of shore. Unappealing to beach goers; you could not park along this ocean road, there was little exposed sand to place down a towel to lay on, and beach shoes or sneakers would certainly be needed to walk over the rocks and into the water to swim. From time to time, we saw hardy neighbors come out of their homes to take a quick dip there on hot days, in order to avoid crowded Sandy Beach with its busy parking lot less than a mile down the road. We took our friends and family to Sandy Beach in the summer to swim. Paul and I loved to come to this rocky beach during all seasons, especially on fall weekend mornings. We would roll out of bed, throw on jeans and jackets, carry mugs of coffee and awaken with caffeine and sea shore breezes. It became our weekend morning routine and one that I cherished, this sweet time alone with Paul that I called quiet time. I loved just hanging out with Paul, jumping the rocks, then laying down together on a bed of warm rocks.
“Okay, it’s your turn to follow me,” I stopped and called out.
Paul complied with this shift in the game. I figured he would, since it’s what we usually did; take turns being the leader of the rock game until we came to the large stretch of boulders that jet out into the sea.
There were at least four such rock groupings with either smooth and rounded boulders or oddly shaped angular rocks with sharp edges. At high tide, these rocks were mostly covered with water and unapproachable. At low and mid tide, pools of water sat in between the various rock formations, forcing us to jump over the water if we wanted to keep our shoes dry. If it was warm enough we would sit down on a rocky ledge, take off our shoes, then stand in a big puddle of sea water left behind by the outgoing tide. We learned to decipher if the tide was coming in or going out based on how wet the rocks were above and around the pools of water. We didn’t get a newspaper delivered which would have included a daily tide chart. Since we lived close to the shore, we just looked at the sand, rocks and sea to know what the tides were doing. We were living in unison with nature and its rhythms.
Paul climbed upon a boulder and reached for my hand from a rocky landing to pull me up so we could sit together and gaze at the sea in tandem. Hearing the squawks, screeches and wailing cries of Seagulls, we began watching the birds’ morning routines while enjoying ours. Since the tide was low, Seagulls of different sizes, ages and varying shades of grey and white were busy finding food; which meant a fish from the ocean, or any clam or crab that might be exposed in a pocket of sand or a pool of water on the receding shore line. We never tired of watching the breakfast ritual of a gull diving down to grab a clam in its beak, then fly straight up to get enough height to then drop it down onto a rock, and swiftly swoop down to grab the innards before another gull beat him to it. Sometimes a brawl would break out if a gull tried to take another gull’s food; leaving one gull to win the tussle and fly off with the meal, leaving the other gull to try again. I always felt sad when the gull who originally found the crab was pushed out of its meal; it was his to eat, and should not have been taken by another gull.
I liked to watch the birds gather together to sit on the rocks, then fly off randomly to ride the wind. I envied how free the Seagulls were. They appeared to have free will to make momentary decisions of their own devices without interference from social rules or order. I noted that gulls did get interfered with when trying to claim food to eat. They probably did have social rules and obligations to follow, ones unknown to us that they sometimes broke, I mused. Paul and I were living together on this rocky shoreline with the Seagulls; in parallel universes, each with our own morning rituals, each with our own social orders.
“Do you know if seagulls mate for life,” I asked.
“ I think so,” Paul answered. “Pigeons mate for life. Maybe it’s the same for gulls.”
“ Do you think Seagulls get married, and have a beach ceremony,” I asked. We both laughed at this.
“ Hey, Do you think we could get married on a beach and have a clambake?” I asked.
“Why not? It Sounds good to me,” Paul said.
“I don’t think our parents will go for it,” I said.
Note:
Seagulls have a highly developed social structure. Seagulls mate for life and will stick with the same partner, each living around between 15 - 20 years. If Seagulls are left undisturbed throughout a season, and being highly territorial, they will return to the same nesting spot year after year. Both males and females take care of their young together, and stay with them for about six weeks. Each finds food and feeds their young. Though gulls generally mate for life, if the pair cannot produce healthy chicks they may divorce. Divorced Seagulls can be seen as less attractive to first time daters, often being left single and alone for a few nesting seasons.
Link to previous related post: The Marriage Proposal
View more photos below. Click on the links to learn more about seagulls.
21 Amazing Facts About Seagulls: A Comprehensive Look! | Learn Bird Watchin
https://learnbirdwatching.com/facts-about-seagulls/
Laughing Gull courtship behavior | Back Yard Biology
What Is the Spiritual Meaning of Seagulls: Symbolism and Signs