As I walk along the beach at the Point Reyes National Seashore, a head pops out of the ocean. Fifty feet away, a harbor seal – an adolescent male – watches me from just beyond the swell. By the time I pull out my binoculars, he’s gone.
This beach has been part of my life for 32 years. The adjoining campground, Coast, is the first place I ever camped overnight. The fallow deer and raccoons that awakened me that long ago weekend are here still, two or three generations removed from the fauna that inhabited this lush seashore when I was a teen. Even then, in 1975, one or two seals always appeared when I found a spot on the beach. They’d emerge from the surf and study me, seeming to wonder what I’d do next—or why I was doing anything at all.
In my life away from Point Reyes, I’ve watched plenty of kids grow up, and 
plenty of people grow old. Some of the creatures I’ve known for years – my godson, my goddaughters, my co-workers and friends – didn’t even exist when I first walked down this beach. My brother Jordan, on the other hand—as well as well my father, and my grandparents —were alive back then. I remember writing my brother and telling him about waking up in the middle of the night, and seeing a stark white deer standing right outside my tent, framed by the horns of Cassiopeia. Jordan’s gone now; so are many of my dear friends, claimed by accidents or disease.
The bluffs and rocks and cliffs of this beach have aged and crumbled during
those years as well, shaped by wind and erosion and tremors. Point Reyes is a lively place, where the ragged edges of the North American and Pacific plates scrape and shift in a perpetual renewal of the planet’s crust.
But though I love this seashore—and have marked its changes—I don’t measure time on a geologic scale. I do that by the people who’ve come and gone in my life, during those 32 years of beach fires, day hikes, and bobcat- sightings.
The seal surfaces again, keeping pace with my stroll along the shore. Quicker with my binoculars, I see his face. The pinniped seems genuinely curious. “Do I know you?” I call out, because alone on the beach we often speak without expecting an answer. “Did I know your father? Your uncle? Have we met before?”
He disappears, exquisitely adapted to water that has already numbed my feet.
I didn’t recognize him, of course. But it’s not unreasonable to think that,
when I first visited this coastline in 1975, one of his kin watched me
spread my blanket and open my book, just as I’ll do today. For all I know,
the seals themselves have kept track of me, as well: that tall guy with thin
legs, who used to have dark hair.
Each life on this planet is a continual coming-of-age, performed with a cast 
of characters engaged in similar activity. We grow up with everyone, and everything, around us. For that reason I’m willing to consider these seals, and bobcats, and pelicans, and elk, part of my circle of friends (or at least my network of acquaintances). Even a fleeting moment of non-verbal contact with a seal feels strangely comforting – like spying a former classmate, or their daughter, from atop a Ferris wheel at a crowded fair.
They may not see you wave, but it doesn’t matter. The sentiment is what counts. We’re still around, you and I. The world’s still spinning. I wish you well.
In memory of Jordan M Greenwald, who would have turned 50 on June 6th. Written at the Mesa Refuge, Point Reyes, California, on the beach and in my writing cabin. My gratitude to the Common Counsel Foundation for the opportunity to spend two weeks at this extraordinary retreat.