Thursday, April 28, 2011

Another Beach stroll April 2011

Benchmarking well-being  

My annual beach trek has provided me with a benchmark of sorts.  I’ve visited here annually for over 30 years.  I have been young and old, thick and thin, motivated and not, manic  and depressed,  sick & well;  and fit & trim.  I have been here as a drunk, and these past 10 years as a recovering twelve stepper. I have knitted incessantly and I have explored mercilessly.
My children and grandchildren have accompanied my husband and I on many of these visits. I remember them with me when they were small children and also as young adults.  I savor the images from those visits ...they are vividly stored in my mind’s gallery.  These are my lasting beach trip mementos, more so than the basket of broken shells and bits of agate & rock serving as a doorstop at home.  A small girl dancing in the silvery sunshine as it twinkles in the slanted light of dusk. Was that my daughter or my granddaughter?  Not certain anymore. I see the dogs clearing the beachfront of all birdlife, chasing gulls into the waves. One dog died of old age, one of cancer, and now one runs the beach in midlife vibrancy.  She prances and climbs the cliffs with my all grown-up grandson. I couldn’t manage the climb this time.
 This visit is not unlike those of past years
At some point in the midst of each these visits, I have sat and pondered in a personal check-in of sorts.  How am I doing? Am I living life as I choose?  Have I remembered to fill up my heart with the full measure of gratitude my days deserve?    This time, I look out the window,  basking in the beach’s rhythms and light. I feel the thrumming of its waves in my body.
 I ask the question.  I dread the answer. 
I am spiritually ailing…..
Full of redemptive hope, though.