I keep drawing animals wrong on purpose.

After walks or afternoons at the beach, I’ll sit down and sketch whatever crossed my path onto these little specimen cards. Fish, birds, shark teeth -small encounters that made me pause long enough to notice I was sharing space with something wild and alive.

None of it is to scale. The colors are usually off. And every now and then something ends up looking like it survived a minor cartoon explosion.

But accuracy isn’t really what I’m trying to capture.

Because what I’m actually trying to record isn’t what something looked like.

It’s how it felt to see it.

Like the afternoon I turned around and suddenly there was a turtle behind me on the beach, calmly walking back and forth along the dune, as if I’d just stepped into its living room. Before I could even process what I was seeing, it disappeared again, leaving me standing there wondering if I’d imagined the whole thing.

Or the quick silver flash of fish in the breaking waves, there one second, gone the next, before I could even tell anyone to look.

Memory doesn’t store things perfectly anyway. It keeps impressions. Fragments. The emotional outline more than the technical details.

So these little cards end up less like scientific records and more like emotional bookmarks.

Proof that I was there. That something made me stop. That for a moment, the world felt a little bigger, or quieter, or more alive than whatever was happening in my head.

Looking back at them, I don’t remember exact colors or measurements.

I remember the feeling of being there.

And honestly, that’s the part I don’t want to forget. 🌊

𓂀Being IS the MAGIC – Wandering Waykeeper – Beckett

If something in this stayed with you, you’re welcome to leave it here.