Quietly, I sit on the sand, and watch as the earth turns toward the edge of the eastern horizon, and paints the sky in shades of pink and salmon. The shoreline glistens, replete with wind waves from the evening blow, and the dancing antics of pelicans as they dive for bait fish.
I realize this is a refuge, this morning ritual I’ve created of sitting next to the sea. It is here I let my mind clear the clutter of worry and the weight of the assault on much of what i hold dear. I realize that I am blessed in my ability to retreat to this seashore, and I never take it for granted. What I have learned in my own life, is that to the ocean I return, for solace, for healing, for a reset.
I lean back on Mary Oliver, a poet who has been lodged in my heart since my first reading of her work.
She writes:
“I am in love with Ocean
lifting her thousands of white hats
in the chop of the storm,
or lying smooth and blue, the
loveliest bed in the world.
In the personal life, there is
always grief more than enough,
a heart-load for each of us
on the dusty road. I suppose
there is a reason for this, so I will be
patient, acquiescent. But I will live
nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting
equally in all the blast and welcome of her sorrowless, salt self.”
–Mary Oliver, Ocean
I share Mary Oliver’s trust in the watery world that encases the planet. The ocean actually unites the shores of all the continents and connects us together.
I don’t understand the world right now. I don’t understand hate, or demonizing those of different color or race or opportunity. I don’t understand the spewing of lies repeated until somehow they become some alter truth. I don’t understand where critical thinking fell off the cliff, like watching a horrific accident in slow motion. Special interests and those with the most money are tearing us apart.
I don’t understand lack of empathy or a misunderstanding of all that is human. I don’t understand those who choose not to see that working together – this misshapen ungainly world of disparate parts and regions and cultures – we can be so much more, gain so much more, make all of our lives so much better.
It is my hope, that you, too, can find that space where for a moment, you can take a breath, let your shoulders slip down and root yourself in your own best essence. Hold on to what you love. It is the best antidote to toxins and hate.
A tiny crescent moon floats above the edge of Isla Carmen waiting for the sun to chase it higher. The silvery sliver of light bathed in soft yellows and pink. The sea presses gently on the shoreline with tiny slapping sounds. Such a morning!
Sundays by the Sea … Shore bird chatter presses landward, layered against the backdrop of whirring hummingbird wings and the staccato call of the flashy yellow oriole. A few walkers. A few dogs. Temperatures in the low 70s. The color of sunlight plays amidst the palm fronds and the pink and red garden flowers. Yes … morning … Grateful I am to inhale your intoxicating air.
Baja Dreaming 
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