Starfish

Walking on the beach early this morning, I found what, if I had held them all together, might've amounted to a fistful of starfish. 

They were washed ashore, scattered along the Atlantic coastline. I kept bending down to pick them up, finding that their little sand sifting legs had been bitten off.  One was dead. He was crispy and floated when I lobbed him back into the surf but the others were all alive: tawny, malleable and pulpous within in my palm. 

Squinting into the sun, I tried remembering where I'd read that starfish will grow their legs back if permitted to survive. Tossing them into the ocean as I walked along, I scanned for more. I enjoyed scouting for them, grabbing them, and throwing them in, a little starfish project for the day! I was  saving something (yay!) and was "making a difference to that one!" just like in the Chicken Soup for the Soul story which I'd read 20 some-odd years ago.

Later, I came back to the house and curiously Googled "what eats starfish?". I thought for sure it would be "seagulls" but the first answer was "sharks". 

Ugh.

So I tossed stumpy, defenseless starfish back into the ocean to drag themselves one legged across the sea floor with the sharks that liked to eat them? 

Great. 

Tumbling it around in my mushroom of a mind, the curious encounter with the starfish seems more and more like a message from the universe. It's sort of an analogy for life. When injured or defeated, do we throw ourselves back in the fray and bravely splash around, preparing to fight what is devouring us or do we stay limbless on the beach, knowing we are slowly perishing but feeling comfortable with the idea that least it's a warm, slow, certain sort of perish and not a surprise chompy one? 

Truth be told, I'm thinking I might be more of a slow perisher.  I fondly remember being a daredevil who flung herself asunder, emerging stronger for it, regenerating legs and handling adversity like a (sea) star but lately, I am less sure floating around in the foamy breakers of my life.

People see me and throw me back, thinking that I can handle the crashing waves, thinking that I can reconstruct my missing parts, but most days I am chum.

I don't want to be chum.

So if the first step to becoming less shark bait and more star-like is acknowledging this, then surely the second step must be to swim, even with only one functional leg, and take some chances. I decided to write this piece and chuck it out there even though it's not perfect and it probably won't get me a book deal and I won't be suddenly asked to write for my favorite nostalgia-based television show because of it, but at least I'm not lying on the beach dying a slow death because I am missing a few parts. In fact, I'm sort of growing accustomed to the idea that I am an imperfect half-legged starfish. At least that makes evolution possible for me. 

So, I am committing to blogging more regularly and flinging it out there, barnacles and all. 

And then, this afternoon, I saw a ten foot bull shark in 3 feet of water. Truly, I did; and where I joined the other folks around us pointing, afraid of the possible consequences, I really wanted that shark to circle back so I could look him dead in the eye and say, "Not today, buddy. I'm growing legs."

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