La Mer

~written June 9, 2011~

After a few patience-testing piano lessons this morning, I came down here to the sea. It's a beach I've never been to before, hidden behind the green-grown dunes. The small strip of sand winds around the edge of the turquoise sea, hugging the shoreline as it faces the unending ocean. It isn't the best place for swimming, as the reef grows close to the foamy fringe of surf, leaving a few feet of shallow water to wade in. But it is a good place to come away to - to piece back together the puzzle of sanity and serenity. Beach grass below a shade tree becomes my blanket and the tree trunk my pillow, while the white-on-blue layered sea is my vision. It is a place to watch the sea birds, the crabs, as they scurry on the sand - to contemplate the miles to the horizon and how to get there - to walk on water. I smell salt more than sunscreen here - a good sign that I am at last alone, reassured that God is in His heaven and all is right with the world. The unadorned tangled web we weave and the white noise of peace are the sandy spoils of the sea. 

With heart and soul I fly to the unbending horizon, with shaded eye sails and no rudder at all but the sea breeze and the sea skies and the seashine. The music of heaven and the beating of true hearts resound with the waves as we float away from the quivering leaves of our trouble trees. If only I were a mermaid. But I am more like a crab underground, afraid. If only, and I could be a gypsy of the water, unabashed and bold, with a current-bending will. I could fly undersea with the sea-strained stars overhead and drowned sailors by my side. Captain of my sea-urchined fate, controller of my sea-watered world. 

No. Dry-footed I stand. Crab-legged and sea-stunned on the shore. Not able to fly, above sea or below. Stick of driftwood in my hand and sand in my heart. It is enough for now, to quiver slowly between the worlds, half-wet. It is enough for dreams. 

Rainy Afternoon by the Sea

Just checking in to share some photos of my afternoon by the seashore. It was just a little bit rainy, with a cool sea breeze and turquoise water. The rain is no reason to stay away from the beach... it's just that much more beautiful...

Free Chair

As you can see, someone left a seat at the beach for you....

Step-by-step guide to ward off insanity... Hawaii style

1. Treat yourself to a large iced mocha
2. Remove shoes (if you live in Hawaii, chances are they're already off)
3. Hide your face in a hat
4. Drive down a windy road - hairpin turns required - until you get Somewhere (preferably the sea)
5. Turn up the radio to tear-your-heart-out music
6. Walk down a long beach and sit on a lonely rock
7. Feel the ocean spray on your face (it's just like that sprinkler system at Disney World)
8. (Lovingly dry off F. Scott Fitzgerald who got soaked in the aforementioned ocean spray)
9. Resist the urge to jump in and swim to Christmas Island (you won't make it, and I know this because...)
10. Smile, because whether you are looking at the real sea or the sea of life in front of you, you have been blessed.

 

Hawaiian Monk Seal

Looking like a dead log on the beach...

The Hawaiian Monk Seal loves to swim out of his watery habitat to sleep on the warm sand of a Hawaiian beach. Usually he is surrounded by stakes and ropes, but this one was all by himself on a lonely beach, unbothered by tourists and conservationists alike. His only signs of life were the short stiff breaths coming out of his sandy face. I felt an urge to stroke his smooth back - the bleached gray and algae colors - but I don't have thousands of dollars to pay in fines for touching his endangered skin. So I took his picture and let him dream the day dreams of a seal...

Bones on the Beach

Skeletons of salty vagrants are swept to shore like so many bones on the beach. They clutter together in cadaverous piles that bleach under the sun. Sea-scavengers are we, delighting in this death. We choose our seashells with care and hide them in our pockets. Only the best of the dead things will we take home. We burn the driftwood for our fires. We stack the sun-dried branches for our shelters. We collect the sand-dollars and starfish, the remnants of the living, to decorate our houses. We reuse the once-lost and find beauty.

New-found Treasure

I discovered a new beach today. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, and so cannot show you what it looked like. But then again, a camera wouldn't be able to capture with its finite lens the beauty and splendor that today was - it just couldn't - and I don't really want to share the identity of the place with anyone. Selfish, I know, but perfection needs to be left alone, untainted by change.

The beach was quiet and hidden, like all perfect things are. On the surface, it looked imperfect, lonely, forsaken. But imperfections are what make up perfection - and so I have named this place "Perfection."

Perfection is out of the way of tourists (forgive me, but you do get in the way sometimes), down a narrow winding road. The sea does not break directly on the beach, letting crystaline ripples slowly drift to land and back out again. The sky was soft and smiling; it opened on me and gave me the air that I've been needing. I felt like I was breathing for the first time in years.

Perfection is one of those places that are so desperately beautiful that you simultaneously want to stay forever and leave as soon as possible just so you can come back again.

Pirates were there before me. It was the sort of place where they would hide their smuggled bottles of rum in the stunted trees that lined the shore; it was the sort of place where a pirate ship could slip in close to land at midnight unawares. I was only a couple centuries too late to see the Jolly Roger shading the moonbeams that gild a surging sea.

Oh, hello - back to reality... I apologize. I discovered something new today. And I am reminded that life is always new, even when it feels like death. There is sunshine even in the darkest nights - you just need to pull your sunglasses off to see it.