There’s the blond boy and his dad on the beach right now, as I sit on the couch and look out at the vast beach outside my window.
Today is the last day I’ll wake up to this beach. At least for now.
When I set out to come to California, I knew I wanted to spend some time in the sand and the salty ocean air, but I didn’t know how or if that would happen, and through a series of magical events, plus me taking a ton of action, I found myself at the cutest little beach house for six weeks. Much longer than I ever anticipated or thought possible.
My main goal for being on the beach was to connect with nature and be immersed in it. I don’t know why I felt this way, but I just knew I needed more nature and I knew it needed to be the ocean.
Even though I grew up on the beach, the ocean type of nature wasn’t always my favorite. I preferred forests and trees and streams and lakes, but since living in Montana and have access to that all the time, the beach started to call me. So I picked up the phone and had a six week love affair with it.
I slept with the windows open so I could hear the waves. I put my feet in the sand. I ate my lunch on the patio. I walked down to the water as much as my physical abilities would allow, which was less than I wanted, but more than zero.
I let the afternoon breeze brush my face while I napped on the couch. I watched and took pictures of a ridiculous amount of sunsets. I had to sweep sand off the floor and the dining room table almost daily. I felt those same specks of sand in my sheets. I made friends with the neighbors. I hardly left this house. And I loved every single moment of it.
I have to check out of here in two hours and I’m getting that ping of bittersweet feelings when anything wonderful comes to an end. I’m so incredibly grateful I had these six weeks, AND I’m sad that I can’t stay here forever.
Whenever I have experiences like this where I’m living in a place that feeds my soul so completely (like I did when I lived in Costa Rica), I try to think of ways to bring what was great about it into my every day life. But since I’ve had so many experiences of trying to do that and it not translating 1:1, I feel that ping of sadness a little bit more. I can’t really bring the beach with me to Montana. I can only remember the bright orangey red color of the walls of this house so much. I can only have this experience, during this time, with these neighbors, and that blond bouncing boy on the beach at this specific time.
Yes, I can book this place again. And I did, after I checked out the first time and came back two days later. And even then, it wasn’t exactly the same. Time is this way. The sunset is only those specific pinks and yellow and purples in that exact way once, and then it’s gone forever. Yes, I’ll have more sunsets, but I won’t have that sunset ever again.
And I think that’s both the beauty and the tragedy of life.
I thought about this each time I tried to take a picture of the sunset, and each time, the picture did not capture it how I saw it with my eyes. As if God was saying, “just enjoy it, today, right now. Your heart will remember this and that’s enough.” As if saying that we can’t hold on. We have to soak it all into our bones and our hearts, and the second we try to bottle it up, it’s gone.
I considered bringing home some of the ocean water in a bottle. I considered bringing some sand. And then I imagined those two things sitting in a jar on my shelf in Montana collecting dust and decided against it.
My toes will have to be the ones to remember the sand falling through them, warming my feet as I walked down to the water one last time. My eyes will have to remember the fluorescent red the sky made last week. My hair will have to remember the curl it made from the salty air. And my heart will have to remember the peace and ease it felt each time it saw the beach laid out before me when I woke up and came out of the bedroom.
This reminds me of a haiku I wrote when we dropped my stepdaughter off at college in the fall…
I’m going to attempt one last trip to the ocean’s edge before I go, and see what Lady Sea has to say to me. And then I’m going to walk out the door of this house, and know I may never see it again except when I close my eyes and bring the waves and the cracking fireplace fire with me in meditation. And that’s going to have to be enough.
XO
Sally
P.s. Some pics of some of the most epic the sunsets, the little beach house, and me for my VIPS below.