I met Simone Johnson at Richmond Terrace Park, just a few blocks from her mom’s house on Staten Island.
There is a pretty amphitheater and a path down to the water, all completed in the last few years.
The weather was hot for June, but cool and breezy by the water.
We were headed to Shooter’s Island.
I thought Simone would like it with her interest in maritime history and marine ecology, but also just the weird remoteness of something so close by, like our trip to White Island in 2021.
Simone spent last fall working aboard the Clearwater, a 106-foot wooden sailing ship that sails the Hudson River to educate and inspire people to protect the environment.
We had a lot to catch up on as we walked. I picked up ceramic chunks, and plastic, my favorite stuff to find on Shooters Island.
“I usually beach-comb for shells, rocks, marine life,” said Simone, “I’ve never looked specifically for this other stuff.”
But on Shooters it is inevitable, the island is mostly landfill, expanded to build ships in the early 20th century.
Here it is in 1930,
and again in the 80s.
There is amazing natural stuff there too, like these scales of a massive fish (or ‘scutes’ of a sturgeon, as we learned after posting the picture to Instagram).
On our way back we talked about how all these things wound up together, this pile of manmade and natural things.
“I don’t know how I feel about balance,” said Simone. “I have met so many different people, all living so differently and in such different geographies. I am starting to wonder if balance is real and can be reached. Can people even have the same idea of what that word means?”
“To me, a lot boils down to worldview, asking what people want and asking “does XYZ have to be this way?” You might get three drastically different responses, but to me, it’s about considering the other person, the water, the marine life, and noticing how we are tipping the scales.”
When she sent her pictures later, it was like she had been on a totally different beach than me, all filled with beautiful shells, and this delicate red seaweed.
But some manmade things did sneak in, like a giant chunk of slag, probably shot out of an iron furnace near this beach 100 years ago.
Here’s what someone sent us later about the sturgeon parts,
and our selfie for the record.
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