By the light of the moon

I heard the coyotes close by.

I was in my down sleeping bag on a tarp laid out on the sand. We were far down in Baja on the Pacific coast with no one else for miles and miles around.

I jumped up to find a rock. But I ended up chasing the coyotes through the desert. I was barefoot and entirely without clothes. I could just make them out in the starlight as I ran on the even gravel and sand surface of the valley, running at full speed weaving through bushes and cacti.

It was exhilarating. So much so that I still remember the night and the feeling many years later.

I played a lot of soccer then and was reasonably fit, so I could run fast and long. I chased them until I saw the reddish glint of their eyes as they turned back towards me on the slope of the ridge that formed the southern edge of the valley.

I saw their eyes again as they turned once more just before their dark shapes, one by one, went over the top and out of sight. And out of our valley.

It was the closest I have ever felt to what it must have been to be early man, primordial man, running to chase an animal or running away from one, with nothing at all covering the feet or the rest of the body. There was nothing else but the heavens above, the light from there, and the earth below me that stretched away into the mountains. Far back behind me was the ocean.

My physical being in that moment was carried away in the speed and excitement of the pursuit. I wasn’t thinking, I was almost flying.

On those trips down into Baja, the rhythm of the days was set by the sun. When it rose over the ridge, it was time to get up as the desert got hot quickly and it was important to lather on the sunscreen early and generously.

We spread the sleeping bags, often wet with heavy dew, on a big bush to dry in the morning sun.

I took an early swim in a cold ocean and we had coffee and breakfast around the fire pit. From shore we fished the rising tide, and when the tide was out, we picked our way through the rocks and waves to gather mussels, barnacles and, rarely, abalone, which had mostly been fished out by local fishermen, taking bait for their traps.

When the sun was going down, we started cooking the evening meal, often including freshly caught lobster or perch or corbina or the wings of a sting ray. The wind from the ocean died down, and we slept under the stars.

So that was the routine. We were in the rough. The wind often blew so hard in the afternoon that you had to bend your head as sand flew into hair and clothes. We were on the beach or in the water or on the rocks much of the day.

But over the course of those days, sometimes, beautiful and strange things happened.

It was another night where I got up in the middle of the night. This time I put on shorts and a T-shirt and walked down to the ocean. I don’t know why I was restless that night. But something magical was happening in the water.

The moon was bright and in a small inlet that was maybe 50 yards across there were thousands of tiny wavelets reflecting the moon’s white light, like liquid jewelry. And within the gentle up and down movement of the surface, the light off the wavelets rippled suddenly in one direction across the bay, and a moment later raced back the other way. It kept going on as long as I watched.

It was the deepest part of the night, the wind was gone, the air was sweet and fresh and there was the sound of small waves hitting the shore.  To this day what was happening that night is a mystery.

I don’t even have a theory on what was making the jewels of light run around the inlet, gather for a while, linger, and then, as the surface rocked gently from the swells, zip back around the inlet to the other side. I don’t know if it was the current or something under the surface that came to dance by the light of the moon on just the right night.