The World: Too Much with Us; Late and Soon

We have returned, obviously, from our annual excursion to the NJ Shore. This one was postponed so long that naturally the weather was just awful the entire time: cold and just POURING rain. We barely could see the ocean through all that mess, let alone don swimsuits (a blessing in disguise, for me at least, in this post-baby mess!) and venture into the ocean. We had one still-very-grey-and-misty-but-non-rainy day, and we all went for a long stroll on the boardwalk. I have decided that I am really a displaced Water Girl at heart. While I love the forests and mountains, LOVE them, something in the ocean really speaks to me (never mind that I am a terrible swimmer and mostly afraid). Water, the sound and sight, calms and soothes me in ways that are always surprising. I also love everything about beach architecture and culture. There is a sense of relaxation that I urgently want to make my own. I find more and more too that this sense of peace comes more from the Atlantic coast, not the Pacific. That, too, is surprising.

Thirst for Salt

Not even plenty of caffeine can make snow fun. Nope. Uh uh. My dream of an endless summer has become buried under a blanket of slush. Just a week ago I looked out the window at the grey, endless expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The lullaby of high tide reminds me of moments of utter bliss: swimming in the moonlit, wine-dark sea during summer solstice in Rethymnon, Crete, reading alone in Santa Cruz, snapping blurry photographs of my brother at Big Sur, the stinging wind and rain at Les Falaises d’Etretat and not even caring the boy I loved was about to leave me, dancing unabashedly on the cliffs above the Golden Gate Bridge, getting stoned (the last time) at Muir Woods on the way to Napa, falling asleep with C.S. and Delta the dog in Venice Beach…I only now remember drifting last night in a blueblack sea and overflowing calmness. Something spiritually healing about the sea. Something that resonates with Home. Something in the way the salt air murmurs and beckons me unknowingly its wholeness. It envelops, embraces me, and I cannot stop myself. I drink hungrily.