The Sea

We have learned the ocean is not just for summer days. We have learned to soak up its beauty without getting soaking wet. 

The tide was high this morning. Coming nearly to the steps. So it doesn’t squish, like usual, up between our toes.  It gives, but only a little. Walking along. Stopping periodically to empty the small piles of sand from our shearling-lined boots. We don’t spend so much time in the sand as on it. Traveling over the top. 

It’s quiet. Both of us busy. Never too far from one another. Winter at the sea is for collecting. 

Soaking in the sounds of the waves as they steadily, steadily, swoosh along the beach. Quieter today. Gentler than yesterday. They swoosh instead of crash. Nevertheless they are relentless. 

I am reminded yet again of the enduring metaphor of the sea.

The change—constant. Sometimes generous as we can attest today with our pockets full of smooth sea glass. Other times taking so much. Sometimes gentle. Sometimes fierce. But always, always there. 

And I think, as I often do these days of how I will live without this daily injection of metaphor. The tonic effect it often has on my heart. 

What will I do without the sand? Even when we aren’t at the sea itself it is constantly there. In bags and shoes and little piles in the corners and building up in my dryer vent. 

I will miss the sand. The everywhereness of it. The pervading annoyance and comfort of sand.

What will I do without the sea? The quick-rusting of any toy or tool with the merest hint of metal. The filthy grimy windows even after Caid’s just cleaned them. The salty smell on the breeze. The swooshing background wave song that has become a constant part of our Australian soundtrack. 

The constant thereness of the sea. 

In May I was laying on Mom’s bed in Colorado. Chatting about this and that the day before we were returning home to Australia. She asked me if I was a Mountain Girl or a Sea Girl. Told me about a sermon she’d heard about it once. 

There are mountains where I am going. We will get reacquainted. I know I’ll love them again. I used to long for them when we lived in England. 

I have learned the answer to Mom’s question though. One I hadn’t known until I lived here.  

Sacred Space

Irresistible. Irrepressible. He shouts his invitation and my list of ‘to dos’ is no match for it. I am beckoned in. I bring my broom. Preparing this sacred space for our sojourn here. Gum nuts and damp leaves are brushed aside. The broom is discarded. As the zip closes the rest of the world falls away. It’s just us here. Cocooned inside the mesh. 

The light softens—the sun shining its mottled leafy pattern through the wall of magnolias. The breeze whispers her sweet song, drying up the muddy dampness of the night’s thunderstorms. The crows call their bizarre half-human cries. The schoolyard across the way sounds like us playing hooky. Reminding us that for today, we don't have to be there. Reminding me that for a few short months it’s just me and him. 

We have our ball. Our games. Offering each other our shrieks of laughter as precious gifts in our tiny universe. No one can touch us here. No one can reach us. We bounce and jump and the scwerch scwerch-ing of the springs is a song that says to my heart “be here. Only here for now.” I obey. I've been obeying for about 3 weeks now. Still I marvel that there was this universe, this precious world just outside my front door. 

Funny, I had thought it nothing but a rusty old trampoline. 

A Bowl full of Sunshine

Rose posted a photo today and something inside me stirred. A gentle stirring. Like the butterfly tickly flutters of a new baby growing inside. Can you photograph sunshine? She did. A big bowl of sunshine. Yellow pear shaped. Perfect round and cherry red. A photo of sunshine in red and yellow packages. A bowl full of beautiful tomatoes from her Colorado garden. 

Maybe it’s some latent farmer love. A longing for dirty hands and a ripe harvest. Perhaps that bowl of tomatoes awakened something deep in my Northern Hemisphere genetic roots. Harvesting a yummy bowl of tomatoes in August just make sense to me. Back to school and the height of the harvest season = August. Back to school and ripe tomatoes = January? That hasn't quite stopped feeling weird. 

My vision swirled. As it will with me. There were raised-box gardens and greens and zucchini and tomatoes and Steve and I mulling over the best way to fertilize.  There were chickens and flowers and I had on gardening gloves. There were canning and fermenting and preserving jars all stacked up on shelves in basements. Kate and I cooking. Scotty and the boys eating corn on the cob on the back deck. Years seemed to spin and swirl around me and all of the visions they contained were in a backyard. In Colorado. And it didn't feel weird. 

A garden. One that grows in the ground. Instead of pots and boxes that can be easily moved. Tending plants I wasn't thinking would reach their full potential with my friends and neighbors, but with me. At my house. For a long time.  

It felt like something I could enjoy. Planting. Harvesting. Planting. Harvesting. These are things one does when one stays. When one isn't leaving soon. When one enjoys the movement of season into season into season into season. I could picture jars in the pantry and bags in the freezer. Things to enjoy throughout the year. These are the actions of a stay-er. Hmmmm…staying. I could try that for a while. Especially if it meant bowls of sunshine every August.