Tide Pools of Wisdom

a timely reminder from (wait for it) a Sea Slug!

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Isn’t he spectacular?

The first time I ever encountered a nudibranch, our family lived in the Pacific Northwest, and we were visiting the Olympic Peninsula. We emerged from the forest onto the beach, a tumble of two grown-ups corralling three excited littles. A group of hikers informed us that this one large boulder had this one small pool containing a noo-di-brank.

“Thanks!” we said. “What’s a noo-di-brank?” I whispered to my husband. “I have no idea,” he whispered back, “Let’s go see!”

In the tiny pool, on the giant boulder, swaying peacefully among tiny seaweeds in impossible micro currents, was a little naked snail. He was a Nudibranch, or Sea Slug, and I had never even heard of them before, and I was hooked :)

They are the stuff of fairy tales, fantastically varied in form and color, over 3,000 known species gracing marine habitats from poles to tropics, from tide pools to the deep ocean floor.

These are Rough-mantled Nudibranchs. Perhaps a bit more visually consistent with the Sea Slug nickname. And do you know what they’re doing? Laying eggs. Those graceful little half-moon curves are just filled with teeny eggs, which nudibranchs often lay in spirals or gently curving curtains.

Larval nudibranchs will hatch into a wide open ocean, drifting as zooplankton wherever the currents may take them. But as adults, the species I encounter will kind of settle into some certain tide pool or another, their world shrinking down to boundaries defined by a rocky coastline cradling salty sanctuaries amidst ebbs and flows.

One summer morning, we were meandering through just such a tide pool, turning over rocks and peeking beneath seaweed. Suddenly, I saw this ephemeral wisp floating by. A Red-gilled Nudibranch, drifting upside down in dappled golden water, gently nudged by lapping waves along the shore.

“Oh no,” I thought. Because belly-up is not usually a good look on marine life. But you know what? It turns out, a Red-gilled Nudibranch just happens to enjoy a relaxing backstroke from time to time.

They spend most of their days scrape-grazing every rocky crevice. But every so often, it seems, they decide it’s time to find some place where the sea grass is greener. And they release their hold on firm ground, and simply drift away. A leisurely freestyle inevitably delivers them into a new place to drop anchor and resume grazing.

I thought of my favorite little nudibranch this week. Having let go of something that was no longer working for him. Calmly, patiently, comfortably adrift on a path towards a new connection, in absolute confidence that it was a gentle drift in the right direction.

More and more, it becomes clear to me that life is about cultivating healthy surroundings. Nurturing caring relationships. Holding safe spaces. And when that space is not safe, when that relationship is not caring, being content to calmly, gently, warmly, let go, confident that it’s a gentle drift in the right direction.

You see, my tide pool features some rough terrain. Some of the inhabitants are sharp and prickly, jagged barnacles and pinching crabs. I live in an economically depressed rural area, predominantly populated by vocal, die-hard, generationally-Republican, recently-MAGA enthusiasts. My husband and I both have close family members that have been deeply manipulative, emotionally abusive, relentlessly self-serving. And I don’t have an enormous amount of control over that, because there’s no such thing as a perfect tide pool. There’s the tide pool you get, and there’s how to make the best of it.

And I’ve sometimes felt stuck, anchored on a rocky ledge, at the mercy of social expectations. Don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Don’t be over-sensitive. Don’t make someone uncomfortable. Accept the excuses. What if they don’t like you anymore?

Some combination of how I was raised and my inherent personality had the result that I always felt like it was my responsibility to get along with everyone. Everyone else was a good person and I just needed to find common ground, and if there was any conflict it was always my fault.

But that is not the dynamic we’ve cultivated in our family. We’re interested in caring, respectful relationships and safe, healthy spaces. We’re interested in recognizing people by their words and actions and choosing our relationships and responses accordingly.

And I keep coming back to the nudibranch, as I muse over how this means getting comfortable with letting go.

This week on Notes, I shared an experience with an acquaintance from Texas who texted me some questions and included some casual racism. And I almost just let it go. Because as long as I’ve known her, I’ve had this inner monologue telling me that “They’re really still a nice person, and of course they don’t mean anything by it, and you don’t want to make them mad, do you?”

But I realized that I’m just less and less willing to give up ground in the healthy surroundings I keep cultivating. I’m not interested in letting that nestle into my boundaries. She’s quite welcome to hold it in her boundaries, but I really shouldn’t accept it in mine. So I called it out.

And I haven’t heard back from her since. And she definitely had her husband text me an unrelated question instead. So it’s quite possible that connection is broken. But if it is, then that’s a gentle drift in the right direction, and the dappled golden waves are gently nudging me into a better orientation, and there will just be one less prickly hazard in the midst.

And just to be fully honest, I’m not super-great at letting go. I’ll have to keep wrestling with myself to be the Nudibranch 🤣

Because what I’m always wishing for is the best case scenario. “Oh, I never thought of it that way, but of course I don’t want to dehumanize other people I don’t even know.”

So the fact that she’s acting hurt and angry with me for pointing out that her comments were racist means she’s just the type of person I thought she was, but hoped she wasn’t. And I continue to be baffled that people persist in thinking and acting this way. So it’s hard to let go.

But I keep picturing that little Nudibranch. Drifting in warm waters. In complete trust and confidence. “This connection isn’t healthy anymore. I’m just gonna let it go. It’s just part of cultivating healthy spaces in the tide pool :)”

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