I Was Cold So I Traveled to The Beach In Meijer's Parking Lot

Meijer Parking Lot! WOOHOO THE BEACH!

I am sick of the cold. I am sick of the words "Polar" and "Vortex" being put together. I am tired of snow. I am tired of salt making my Soul dirty. I am just done with it.


So the other day I decided to go to the beach. With ventures to Florida actually costing money, and my schedule being what it is I had to be creative. I went to the beach Time Lord Style.


I live very close to a Meijer. This Meijer's real estate was created by blasting into a hill. In doing so it uncovered an old sea bed. Incase you didn't know or forgot, Ohio was once under the sea.


On a total whim after I had been grocery shopping I went to the far end of the parking lot and picked up three rocks. Three rocks at random completely caked in dirt to a point where I didn't know what I had. All I knew is that I would have something. The past in my hand. An ocean long gone but an ocean all the same.


I carried my cache upstairs and promptly placed them in a hot soapy bucket and began scrubbing them with an old toothbrush. Slowly the dirt began to come away revealing more dirt. I began to realize I hadn't just picked up 3 rocks but quite a bit more that were plastered together with dirt. The more I scrubbed the more the details came to life.


I honestly made a point of not looking anything up on the internet about my findings or about how to clean them. I wanted to discover everything on my own. I wanted to scrub and clean them, not expecting to find one type of a fossil or another. Instead of searching for a certain something, I wanted to discover all that I could on my own. I was not disappointed.


One of the rocks has a very fun pattern to it. Little perfect circles randomly spaced with shell patterns placed in-between. Another appears to be just a huge rock completely made out of pushed together shells. They have a little sparkle to them. A few of them were a little plain on the surface so I hit them with a hammer. Again I didn't look up the proper protocol on how to do this. I simply grabbed the hammer and put the rocks in a plastic bag and just started swinging. It felt good. My roommate came in halfway through my experiment. When he asked what I was doing I simply proclaimed, "Science." Again, I wasn't disappointed at what I found.

I often study the stars. In doing so I feel very small. Insignificant really. Looking up at the sky does give you great perspective with the general scheme of things. Solar systems come and go. The lifetime of our Earth pales in comparison to that of the universe. I'll stop there before I start quoting Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" spiel. But what I am getting at is often when I look up at the sky it gives me the feeling that my problems don't matter. I know I will not make such a difference in the universe, or even the human race, that I will be remembered when humans are living on Saturn's moons. Strangely enough this thought gives me the freedom to simply relax and enjoy my life for what it is. No pressure to impress the future Titanians. I can breath easy.

But looking at these rocks, looking at these fossils, I see a life that I am certain didn't even know it was a life. They are dead and really are simply imprints of former life. These shells and pieces of coral are really an accidental reminder from millions of years ago of what was here. The creatures in the shells millions of years ago fell in just the right place that they are now preserved sitting on my desk. They had very little aspiration in the general scheme of the world. From what I know of shells they eat and reproduce, that's about it. Yet the Earth saw fit to preserve these little guys.

So while my general perspective is that the universe doesn't care about me, these fossil show that the Earth just might. One day millions of years from now, I might be fossil sitting on some future beings desk, while they ponder whether or not I knew I was alive. That makes me smile.

I now have what I like to call my mini beach. It might be snowing outside. The weather may have put a damper on some of my plans tonight. But I am a little warmer now that I am surrounded by the remnants of life from the Ohio Sea bed.