Gifts to the Sea

Sometimes everything has to be put on hold, so that you can have an afternoon like this...

As the minutes ticked by after G's arrival home from school, I came in the house and consulted my Tide Log.  Yep, negative low tide at 4:40 pm.  It was a few minutes after 5 o'clock now and sunset was said to occur at 5:33 pm.  Dark at 6:33 pm.  Hmm.  I ran through the reasons we should just stay put and came up with lame things like I need to make dinner, or clean the kitchen cabinet doors, or work on our taxes...and then I came to my senses and yelled to the husband that it was leftover night, grabbed Grady and flew out of the house like a crazy woman on a mission.  The beach at low tide has a way of doing that to me.

We gathered up our bag of beach treasures and decided today would be the day to return some of them to their rightful owner.

The ocean has been giving us bits of sand-softened seaglass for close to five years.  I've amassed thousands of pieces over the years and they brought me such joy when I searched for them, when I found them, when I rolled them in between my fingers while they were in my jacket pocket.  I would bring them home and give them a quick bath under the kitchen faucet and let them dry on my counter in a colander.  A large vase home awaited them in my living room.

I am now ready to give them back.  If balance is my intention this year, then something had to be done about this hoarding of seaglass.  The scales had tipped over the years and they needed to be evened out.

We walked as quickly as we could down the hill, over the boardwalk and onto the beach.

We said farewell to our little lovely treasures and emptied them onto the wet, glistening sand.

After thinking on it for a spell, I realized it was never the seaglass that I wanted.  It was the experiences I had while I collected the little jewels at low tide that were the true gifts.  The friends I used to walk the beach with and laugh as we got pounded by the surf because we'd turned our back on the ocean!  The early mornings of solitude walking along the coast before my little boy woke up and needed his mama.  The late afternoon escapades with the children dearest to me.  The running and jumping and laughing until the sun set and we were out of breath trying to climb back up to higher ground and survey the horizon like true explorers.  That is what I am looking for when I go to the beach.  True and honest experiences.  The seaglass has served as small reminders.

I needed this ceremony of returning these gifts back to sea.  This has been a month of purging and renewal.  This felt right.

It felt good to release my little treasures.

And I look forward to creating new adventures and memories on this amazing Sonoma Coast at the next low tide.