Take to the Sea

 This time of year finds me contented. The beginning of summer with it's softness and greenness stirs something inside me that holds forth a type of promise that things will be good.

Our family tradition has become meeting in Maine for three weeks and living in the beach house at Moody Beach. My sister comes from Florida, my nephew comes from Detroit, my mother in law from Arizona. My brother and his family come from outside of Boston. It has become, for me, a time outside of time.  

The ocean rolls in and out and I look at it all day perpetually fascinated by the immensity of the sea. It is hard, when confronted by an ancient force, to focus on small problems.  I love the ocean and not in a charming way. It is terrifying and beautiful. There are nights when the tide is so high and so strong that it hits the sea wall and moves the boulders.  All of this reminds you that you, human, are so small and inconsequential that your anxieties are misplaced. 

I walk the beach after those tides and see fish, lobsters and crabs torn apart by the force of the waves. I wade up to my knees, even though the water is ice cold. I walk out on the rocks to the tide pools. I haunt the edge of the tide. I am uniquely at ease.