The Magic of Water

This is what five days is like without access to email, blogs, or anything computer related in ANY way. How incredibly stunning is that? I'll tell you.. very.

Last Wednesday, I headed out early (ok.. so it was 12:30.. but really, that was quite good for me) and drove in a southerly manner, feeling light on a gorgeous day with nothing other than the road in front of me and a lengthy, but well-worth-it drive to the Oregon Coast. It was a long overdue family gathering with aunts, uncles, and cousins from my dad's side whom I haven't seen in some time, a few for at least a year or more, and with most of whom I never get to spend that kind of time. Honestly.. for the first time in ages, I was really looking forward to being a part of that.

I lived in Lincoln City for 10 years - thru high school and working thru some summers during college when I could stand being so close to Mom and Dad who weren't getting along and with whom I got along much worse when I was within a few miles. But this was Arch Cape - just four miles south of the cutesy Cannon Beach and about 10 miles south of that tourist trap they call Seaside. No Arch Cape is quieter, more isolated, more dignified.. and tho memories from when I was younger ran thru my head, I mostly remembered how much I loved the ocean.


I could feel the change in the air.. in myself.. as I neared my destination. My family was preparing for dinner when I arrived in the late afternoon - gourmet pasta, decorated salad.. we didn't eat poorly, that's for sure. And I was greeted with warm, caring hugs and smiles, how-are-you's and what's-new's and tho it sounds a bit cheesy, it felt so good. Sometimes, the busy social life is a lot of work. Being single and dating, working 8-5 plus, the city life of friends and their events - not that it's not rewarding and I love my life and my friends who make up my chosen family, but this family, that is basically blood-related despite my adoption into it, has known me since I was born and you can't find that kind of integral acceptance - that well-we're-stuck-with-her-but-I-guess-that's-ok sort of love that only gets better when you realize you can finally relate to the adults as another adult. It sounds strange - that I'm a all grown up, but there's such pleasure in it.


And I see how fascinated my 16-year-old twin cousins are with me as they gunned me down with questions about my love life (just barely above non-existant) and teased me about turning 40 (hi.. 6, SIX years away, thank you.. if you want to live to see 17..) cuz they know they can. And I can see how well they've grown into precocious young women who spent a good four mile walk talking politics and world events with me. And their parents and my other aunts and uncles see how I've grown and changed and *shocker* have a personality and maybe that I'm a rather sensational individual myself. And you know what? I saw that they were too.


One of my favorite things about this time with everyone was getting to know my four-year-old cousin, Maeve. She's a wee thing from China my aunt and uncle adopted three years ago last weekend, which gives her and I a special bond that even at her age, she understands. We sang songs, looked for starfish, sea anemones, and hermit crabs in the tidepools, sand dollars along the beach, read stories and were quite silly actually.. but when you're around a bright and tiny star of a child, it's easy to do that. She's a little bit of magic, that one and I just fell in love with her.


Days were spent getting up much earlier than I'm used to on weekends (8:30 am!), at least one lengthy walk down the beach a day, if not two, after breakfast and french-pressed coffee, ice cream - which was never a bad idea until it was just about twice a day.. and then, hey, we were on vacation, so there. We met up with friends of my family at their beach house down the road, collected enough sand dollars to fill a treasure chest, admired the flocks of pelicans I never knew existed along the coast, played too much Boggle, Yahtzee and cribbage and oooh'd and awww'd over who was winning, bad hands, and clever words. And you can't have a beach vacation without s'mores.. so we had a few of those (or five) along with a roaring campfire and a glorious sunset. And I STILL had three days left!



By Saturday night, I was feeling an ache to be home in my own bed, to snuggle with the cat, and to check in with my friends. The desires of a city girl can never be quelled for long when away from the city itself.. but it really was difficult to tear myself away from that view, that sun.. and the clean smell of summer at the beach.


The ocean has always held something for me. It's been where I would escape to when I skipped classes with friends in high school, where I'd cry in solitude over the latest broken heart, or just daydream the time away when searching for poetry to scribble in a journal. This trip reminded me of the underestimated strength of water - it can put out fires, wear down the earth and its walls, drown your sorrows - or you, if you aren't careful - but mostly, its rhythm is healing. It comes in and goes out - leaving traces of debris it's trying to work thru and expel and yet it continues to wear away the stagnant rocks and embraces every difficult grain of sand. Why that moves me, I don't know.. but I found myself a little treasure I brought home to remind me of that feeling - a powder blue board etched with an Isak Dinesen quote I've long had in my journal of ramblings and wanna-be rhymes:

"The cure for everything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."

I think that says it all.