Look Around and Pay Attention #2
Sitting on the sand witnessing life ebb and flow in human interactions.
My husband and I are really leaning into the gift of alone time - even if just for an hour or 22 minutes. He often goes to CrossFit up the road or makes a delicious meatball meal with Italian music on a speaker while I whisk the kids over to the final hour at the local library. And when Chris takes over for bath time in the evening or runs with all three kids to the grocery in the morning, I take my bike down to the beach or do a yoga class on the back porch.
On this particular day, I sit on a beach towel folded into a rectangle on the sand with a small backpack emptied of the usual diapers and wipes and kids socks with snaps at the ankles, now filled with a library book of poetry, a can of white wine and sunglasses.
It takes me a moment to land being here by myself without a kid going a little too far in the ocean and another kid introducing me to a parent of a new best friend she met ten minutes ago or my toddler-baby (the youngest will always be the baby) noshing on some gnarly seaweed while exploring her new ability to walk … right into the surf. I look around to explore my senses to land in a space. I can smell the salt air, I can see all the people vacationing from the city and jobs and routines, I can hear an underlying buzz of conversation and I can taste the sweat on my face from the bike ride as the 100% humidity has become a stage five clinger. My hands take tiny sand particles in between each finger and I am now here at the beach, I still cannot believe it sometimes.
The alone time, still hard to fathom as life is really loud and filled with a lot of humans these days. And the ocean life is still hard to grasp as just moments ago we lived in mountains on major rocks all land locked.
I look up to see a woman running with her younger son. The ease of connection and touch of vulnerability is palpable as she must be training for something, and he is along to support her. How do I know? Well mama is struggling to run, breathing heavy and wearing tennis shoes and a whole work out get up. The younger son is barefoot, casual in his swim trunks and an oversized t-shirt holding her phone while talking her ear off and breathing totally normal while running. I smile thinking that she might have almost bailed on her run because they are on vacation but then he said he would go with her and she would not want to miss the time with him and could stay the course for her training, so they went together.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Optional Optimism to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.