day 12
back on a beach.
Tiffany turns 40 and 40 of her friends gather on the beach in Santa Cruz tonight, to count with her: 41 candles. Tonight I will sleep with the waves of the ocean within earshot, my breath, thru the night, adjusting to the rhythm it loves best. note to self: spend more time on beaches, soon, often. Outside my window now the waves crash and it makes me deliriously happy. Hearing smelling, feeling the waves is like recharging my phone – re-adjusting breath patterns It’s like a wireless hot spot – the closer and the longer the better the recharge, reconnection, smile. My mother’s favorite book is ‘The gift of the sea’, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. My mother, like me, longs for long hours by the seashore. I think of her as I sit here now with the sun setting, and I find this quote from the book, which is another gift of re-focus, another stop on this count up to greater mindfulness and focus and self love:
“…I want first of all – in fact, as an end to these other desires – to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact – to borrow from the language of the saints -to live ‘in grace’ as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony…”
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea)
Day 12. 38 to go towards more grace, harmony, peace, intention. And it’s like the ocean – endless, vast – but right here, right now within my lungs.
