I'm not sure how it started.
Most likely in the normal way.
Let's get the girl out of the house and let Mother Nature
babysit.
One success breeds desire for repeat results.
She was cautious at first, as she is wont to be.
Staying close and preferring sand to sea.
But we kept coming back, to the Golden Garden.
And now she she wants to be in the water.
At all times.
Even though the chill of Autumn has cooled the Puget Sound waters considerably.
We just keep coming back.
There's rarely a week of our lives that we don't drive due west 10 minutes.
In late winter, she hated the sand.
Now, she wants to immerse her soul in the grains.
And sand control has become part of our lives.
Finding it under covers and folded into socks.
And it has taught me a lesson I was sure I wasn't capable of,
to let go
to not be bothered.
At least not by sand.
It's our spot.
It's where we go
To feel our lives.
To force breath into all the anxious nooks and crannies,
To dig deep and deeper into the fine grain of minutia.
To slow down and look at rocks.
To see how light changes your view
And how shadows hug you tight.
And to occasionally see baby seals taking naps in the sunset.
And to eat Paseo's.
And to reset bad days
And to better good days.
But mainly, we go back
to be shocked back into our own skin by the unparalleled beauty of
right now, right here.
crm
Though I do not wish to spend all my days in 80 degree sunshine, I am still a California girl by birth. Right about this time of year, I can close my eyes and feel my hair whipping my face as I ride in my Mom's old '57 Chevy Station Wagon, windows down because there was no A/C. She raised four kids single-handedly for 10 years and we were rather tight on money, but she seemed to make special outings happen. I remember not only frequent trips to Disneyland, but also trips to
Ventura beach. We would leave at sunrise and all sleep in the car as she drove the 45min to the seaside, then spend all day swimming and sunning. Lunches on that day, though nothing fancier than homemade PB&Js, a thermos of cold water, and nacho cheese Doritos, never tasted better. Come sunset, with sand-filled swimsuits, we would climb back into Betsy and watch the golden light on the horizon and drift off to the sound of the wind drying our hair as we drove home.
Windows Down.
Always Windows Down.
Later on as a teenager, my best friend Keri and I would take several trips, looking for trouble (we never found any, we were good girls afterall) and turning heads as much as possible, which is easy to do in a bikini while driving. Her VW Bug was my ticket to freedom, and also didn't have A/C.
Thank God.
I'm going home to Southern California this weekend to see my Teresa and Clara, and I cannot tell you how much my skin aches for a drive like this. I've requested to see my ocean.
I love your salt-water soul,
Every year, my saint and his family head to
Ocean Shores, Washington
. It's completely not enough time, but it is one time a year that we all finally get to be together (aside from Christmas). Last year, we all watched
Jenn's prego belly with anticipation, but this year, we all got to hold our lovely Olive Jade. She is 6 months old, and cute as a friggen button. I took my journal and books, but truly, there was nothing more I wanted to do than casually leaf through magazines and spend long hours after meals just talking with my family. They truly nourish me, each of them in their own ways.
Mom and Dad because of their great adaptability as parents. They've made the transition from raising their kids to having an adult relationship with them. They engage our ideas as peers and refrain from unsolicited advice or correction, deciding instead to release their fears and buoy us into trusting ourselves as humans. I find this remarkable; time and time again, it has made me seek them out for advice and wisdom. These two could seriously write a book about parenting.
Brian and Jennifer because of their "automatic setting" (to borrow my friend Andrew's phrase) of optimism and happiness. I am not wired this way, so it is really quite nice and importantly balancing for me to be around them. I see them continually embracing life with a trust that in the end, things will always be okay. Despite being different from my own mental process, I find it refreshing, I guess. They've had a baby this year and it's just been really endearing to see them come into themselves as parents as Olive comes into herself as a human. Olive is remarkably hungry for life, and I just love to stare at her while she attacks her toys and somersaults herself in your arms. She is a continued source of laugher and sheer joy to us all.
Tim and Julie because they absolutely know how to have a good time. The phrase, "throwing caution to the wind" might not truly capture their ability to play. When I was taking a yoga class, the teacher encouraged us to find a spot on the wall to practice handstands. I am rather uncoordinated at handstands, but she assured us that the benefit was in playing, not in achieving. Once I could imagine myself as a child, unaware of my own silliness, I could see what it might mean to really play again. I think of this when I think of Tim and Julie. She is 26 and has had a rather shitty year, but she'll run out to the ocean like a crazy person, not caring about anything but pursuing the wind in her face and the sand kicking up below her. Despite this carefree nature, they both still have immense substance.
Abbey because she is so eager to please and well-behaved.
And
my saint. My saint because when I reach into the far-off places of my imagination, both past and future, I cannot dream up a man more suited to loving me exactly as I would wish. Nothing in me has ever settled down to be with him...or settled at all for that matter. Plus, he is my favorite person to take an afternoon nap with.
It has been recently discovered that humans who look at fresh flowers daily report higher positivism and mood elevation. You can very well then imagine our heightened saratonin levels as we wandered through Carslbad Flower Fields.
They were selling frozen lemonade, but I wanted to buy the lemonade stand!
(some people didn't appreciate my humor)
We then decided to crack out on happiness
by driving home via the coast on Highway 101.
(Strange to think that if I had only driven north for 800 miles, I could pop in on
her)
The next day, we hit the beach again! I tell you, my mood has never been so elevated.
(nor my shoulders so burned! I felt like a retarded Washingtonian (no offense, everyone I love) who
doesn't know how to handle themselves in the sun and burns to a crisp)
We went back to the
cove that I saw on Easter to check on the momma seals and their pups.
This lovey lady had an itch.
Momma and pup during a swimming lesson.
Clara was quite taken.
On happy ocean overload,
crm