a year and a day

i ran away this week.

all my kids are back to school, my husband has been working like crazy, i've been working like crazy and have piles and piles more to work through. so after dropping off kids, having prearranged for them to be picked up by family (yes, it sometimes takes prearranging to run away), stopping by starbucks, off i went. "pacific ocean, here i come!" it's three hours one way, but the drive was as important as the destination (windows down, tunes blaring, the open road).

it had been a year and a day since i'd been to trinidad state beach. that time with one of my best friends (you know, the kind who could make millions selling your secrets to tabloids if ever you became rich and famous). it wasn't the best time in my life, a year and a day ago, but the two of us had a time that cemented a certain bond beyond breaking. we ran along the beach in the dark, stayed up late talking, went back to the beach the next day, and drove home in near silence as we contemplated what waited ahead.

this week i went alone. alone is good sometimes. needed even, i've come to believe. grownups, career people, married folk aren't often self-less enough to get away alone. yes, i said selfless, not selfish. another thing i've come to believe. before it seemed self-sacrificing to give my life to family, friends, readers, and the stories themselves. and it nearly did me in. it takes some kind of wisdom that i'm only now discovering (through the insights of others) to take care of myself, my inner self in particular, to such a height that i can give to those people and things i love and who love me. a martyr might be a good if you're going to die for others, but to live for others, it seems you need to be strong, not dying. and i'm stronger now. i want to stay strong (which has something to do with weakness, a weakness only god fills up with strength). maybe i'm not fully saying this, i'm still discovering it myself -- that balance between nurturing our own souls not only for ourselves, not only for others either, but for us, others and god, perhaps?

CULTIVATE SILENCE AND CAPTURE BEAUTY
wrote those words in my journal while on the beach (yep, one of those dorky journal people at the beach and what of it -- i've become a blogger after all).

i think often i've been a "user" of silence and beauty. i observe and breath it in for a purpose, be it a storyline or character or something to share with someone i love or for even a stranger with likeminded soul. communion got me thinking about this, about partaking of things and making them part of our own being. of really letting silence and beauty reside inside without agenda or ticking clocks. something like hearing the christ say, "look around, this is me. partake in remembrance of me."

the beach -- nothing so revitalizing as the eternal rhythm of the sea. i waded in the waves, watched a family swim and laugh as their dogs splashed around,
finished reading THE GOOD LIFE: BENEDICT'S GUIDE TO EVERYDAY JOY which i highly recommend along with all robert benson works. it was only some hours away, some hours that would've disappeared, and yet, now they haven't.

before turning toward home, i bought a coffee and sandwich, sat by the trinidad lighthouse, and just enjoyed the silence and beauty. it was good to be there, a year and a day later. some things get lost, others gained, but the silence and beauty can remain. love remains, don't you think?

and so, i've decided...i just need to run away more often.