So, I have been at my beach winter hideaway for a month now. I always bring a list with me of all the things I hope to accomplish. For about a week, I experience some guilt and anxiety over not meeting my rigid productivity timeline. I call this time period my airlock - the transition between my usual, harried home life and the unstructured freelance that is my winter getaway.
By mid-December, my trepidations having dissolved in salt air, I jolt out of the airlock and embrace the soul-rising, heart-singing joy of the coastal vibe. The metronome of the surf surrounds me - a faithful pulse. My heart rhythm syncs to the ocean cadence and I am reconnected to the music of the spheres. I focus on the changing colors of the tide - silver, green, blue and the desultory movement of clouds in the sky. It is almost like being twelve years old again when I was still relatively new to the world and I noticed everything about it. That’s what my beach brings me - my twelve year old self. I sleep when I’m tired, I awake when the morning sunlight pours into the room. I am so conscious of the cycles around me - the tide, the moon, the stars. And yet, despite the orderly, unchanging prolonged rhythm, there are daily unique variations. Doesn’t that say something about life itself?
The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.
Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
I think part of what of draws me to this seascape is not only that it is a complete change from my usual schedule and environment but I am away from everyone I know. The solitary early morning beach walker that shares my beach nods his head and smiles but keeps going his way as I go mine. We’ve recognized the human connection but do not let it interfere with the intimate nature connection that we are both experiencing.
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
Lord Byron
Instead of focusing on the productivity list I so earnestly prepared prior to my departure, I let my mind move unfettered through whatever catches my fancy and I find myself making mental connections between disparate thoughts. I think it allows my perspectives to expand and my creativity to mend. I’m lost in myself but the boundaries to self are expanding.
“Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it's a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.”
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
When I’m at home, I focus on the daily news and doom scroll through all my screens. Here, I go days without hearing the news and when I do finally catch up, I realize the truth in what my grandmother used to often tell me, in the golden, dusty, childhood summers I spent with her. I would come to her in tears with some fresh loss - the feral kitten I had tried in vain to catch, the intact dead butterfly I found on the ground, the oddly shaped leaf torn from my hands by the wind, and she would gather me in her arms and whisper, “this too shall pass”.
“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."
[The Minotaur]”
Albert Camus,The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
The last weekend of the year for me, like most everyone I think, is a time for deep reflection. Where have I been? Where am I going? For me, this year adds another question. What have I done with the year I have been given? In 2022, I was diagnosed with cancer. It could have ended my life. Instead, I was given another year and for that time, I will be forever grateful. But what have I done with the gift? That’s what I’ll spend this weekend contemplating.
So, maybe the song for the day should be:
I wish for you the happiest and most awe-filled 2024 possible!
dldavidson
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