We have made it. The week’s weather has been brisk. I am sitting outside on a sun porch. Everything is damp and the wind is cutting through the old blown out screen. I’m okay with it. I can hear the ocean. I have unplugged from social media for the week. No outside opinions. No mean spirited gossip. No Instagram or YouTube until I am home. No morning tarot and no Molly podcasts this week. That was hard. I have relied on the familiar voices of YouTube to get me through lonely days at home. The humdrum routines. Their soothing voices were quiet this week. No thumbs up, no hearts. I was guided to remove myself from it all while away, and trust my own voice. My 42nd Birthday came during the trip, and I did check Facebook to thank any well wishers. I met a gentleman reader on the boardwalk. He read for me. It ended with the tower, as many other reads for the month.
The weather as I had mentioned has been less than ideal for the typical beach bunny. Typical beach bunnies my family is not. We did have an attempt for a full beach day earlier in the week. Packed lunches and snacks, the new beach cart filled with things we didn’t touch. The trip lasted maybe over an hour before my child started to melt down and need to go to the bathroom. An on going fight that has drained most of my patience. Another outing to look for crabs at dusk was more successful, but ended again with the walk back to the bungalow for the potty. He has lost interest in the beach quickly, it is cool and the wind is very strong, surf stronger, with a stagnant band of tide water that required crossing to get to the waves. I have slipped away in pre-occupied moments. The video game system and tablet stowed away with us.
My encounter with her has been humbling, and terrifying. Her color is adventurine, not blue. She is not sterile, sanitized, contained. The salt of her waters burns my niks and cuts. She has seen a billion births and deaths. I have waited on the shore, searching for her gifts to come in. She has only offered broken bits. Jagged edged pieces of her that I quickly place in my sweatshirt pocket, pressing my thumb’s flesh into the points. I look for shadows in the waves. When they build up and curl, expecting to see monsters lurking, silhouettes of prehistoric beasts. Not a hint of her secrets. She is surprisingly warm when we meet against the cooler air. The foam a pure white tinted to dirty snow. When Niko was playing on the shore I kept an uncomfortable grasp on his hand. He is so slight, she would take him with ease. I have much more intimate connection alone on the sand. I could stand here forever. The alternating roar and whisper of her. The vastness of her. So dark in places the light can never reach, and the most beautiful creatures and colors the sunlight can illuminate.
Before I came to the ocean, a week or so before, I had experienced two distinct ‘aha’ moments. Most of my journey of late has been balance. I write these posts to share my changes in life. The human need to connect with others that are experiencing similar (but very personal) paths. Not to compare. We are all doing this in the way WE need. The journey. My merging of home and spirit has been the hardest. I feel like I have been stitching the two into a Frankenstein monster. The tread puckering the seams with novice handiwork. I need to turn off life to make a connection to myself. I had a day of prepping for the vacation, new school, pets ready for the sitter, cleaning the house…. my child was not feeling well. He had to start school the next day. The first day of school. Important day that I had to make perfect. My mania was getting the best of me as a ran from room to room, doing too many things at once. We met in the kitchen, myself and my child. I looked at him and could see he needed me. All of me. I stopped, held him and stood and rocked. He relaxed and we went into the living room. Turned off the tv and sat in the old rocking chair. We rocked for over an hour. Kept a steady slow movement. He slept and the weight of him was a comfort. The creak of the chair. Even the animals stopped. It was a perfect balance of soul and life.
The other was a series of photos. The story I pieced together, and the mastery of the craft, the eye that can find the beauty. The stories capture my interest as much as the subjects they freeze in time. My breath can catch when I see something so fascinating, something tangible sharing ground here on earth. The inspiration I needed was in a particular photo of a large jungle cat. She was raw power and very aware of the camera. Her eyes expressed this. They had the colors of the sea, an animal so detached from it. I felt the respect, in the moment when the image was captured, between her and her subject. I imagine the syncing of energy, the instant of the click.