I’ve just returned home from a week spent by the Atlantic Ocean. My favorite beach activities are walking along the shore looking for seashells, watching birds and dolphins play and remembering what a tiny, although vital, part of the Universe I am.
I try to read the many books I drag along each time in anticipation of leisurely literary hours. I’m usually unsuccessful in this undertaking. But, I always leave with more knowledge and understanding than I came with by taking the time to just be here now. The ocean has a way of teaching things that are not found in books.
In Anne Morrow Lindberg’s classic book on women’s lives, Gift from the Sea, she muses on what the real gifts are that she is taking home with her from her seaside vacation. It’s not the shells she has collected; she returns most of them to the sea. She finally concludes:
“Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid.”
Yes, this: Each cycle of life is valid and needful. Each wave. Each sunset and sunrise.
I read this short, but important, book each year when I’m on a beach vacation. There’s so much wisdom tucked between its pages. I read it when I was a young mother of two toddlers, and I read it still as a mother of young women who are older than I was the first time I read it! Life passes us by so quickly.
I like to ponder what I’ll take back with me when I return home each time. That has changed over the years. As I grow older, my list grows smaller:
I want more simple living and less stuff. I want more evenings by the firepit, more coffee on the back deck and less busyness. I want more quiet dinners and less artificial noise. I want more time and love and meaning and less clutter. I want to be content and to live each moment in gratitude and awareness for all I have, while not adding any more to it. I want to be surrounded by family, friends and nature. I want to encourage, uphold and support. I want to be a peacemaker and lightbringer. That’s what I’m taking home from this family trip to the beach–a kinder, gentler, less-hurried, simplified version of myself.
That’s my gift to me from the sea.
All photos taken by me September 2017, South Carolina.
Amazing and wonderful imagery here. Thanks for sharing, nice to sit a spell here
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Totally agree, it truly does have a way of teaching us things that books cannot. beautiful photos.
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Thanks for stopping by my blog:)
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I love the steady rhythm of the waves on the shore and the sunrises and sunsets over water. This post spoke to me.
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The waves…yes. Thank you:)
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I really enjoyed this, felt very calming as I’m sitting here on my computer. It’s so important to remember what really counts and a trip to the beach ( though nothing as trite sounding as the words themselves sound) can do that for me too.
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Thank you, Lynne!
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Beautiful photos, tranquil desires
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Many thanks, Derrick.
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I’m with you sister – the greatest gift of all is finding out that each life is valid and our needs are few. Growing older, it turns out, is a great blessing! 🙂 I love and applaud your aims – shine on!!
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Thank you, Pauline. Once again, we are kindred spirits ❤️
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It sounds like you have brought a lot of meaning back with you. And it sounds like you had a wonderful vacation.
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I did and I did! I prefer the mountains, but there is something so edifying about the vastness of the ocean.
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I completely agree.
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