Life's a Beach

Where do you go to find perspective and renewal? For me, it’s always been at water’s edge; I see the best of myself looking at an expanse of ocean or a lake shimmering like diamonds.

When I lived in San Francisco in the 1970s, I discovered a certain kind of sunshine that smiled on the City from a humble finger of land that stuck out into the East Bay at the end of Ashby Avenue. I knew it as the fishin’ place, where retired old men and dreamers who couldn’t be tied to a desk sat out in the weeds and wildflowers with their poles to see what they could catch.

The spot was remarkably quiet, save the gentle splashing of water and the clinking you always hear in places like that, though bustling Highway 80 was right behind it and the Oakland-Bay Bridge just to the left. I often went there by myself to get away and find needed perspective. I could sit on a rock and write in my journal, looking at San Francisco from afar as if the whole city were just a single entity. Like Jonah looking at the whale from the safety of a harbor instead of from inside its churning guts.

I’ve also sought refuge on the beaches of California and Hawaii. My nature is very much like water: reflective of what’s around me, willing to take the shape of my container. It’s a gift that’s served me well as a writer, and also one that’s caused me trouble when I allowed others to define who I am. At water’s edge is where the purity of that gift and its infinite possibility speak to me.

These days, we can feel as if the tide’s rolled out, leaving nothing but sand behind, and causing us to wonder if we’ve been cast into the desert. The temptation to follow our memory of that creamy topping of surf out to the depths is great – as strong as gravity itself. We long for communion with what we recall as “life,” even as we recognize, especially in this pandemic, that to do so may take us down.

It’s difficult to stay courageous and wait. But when time, space, gravity, and God are ready, a fresh wave will come, refilling us with the vibrancy and life we so crave. The thing is to trust it’s coming, to believe in ourselves that we are whole, and that we will not forever be standing at the edge, watching everything we love in retreat.

Keep your head to the sky. 

Adapted from SINCE I LOST MY BABY