I remember the first time I saw the ocean.  I was 21 and a senior in college.  My soon to be wife and I “Chaperoned” my Youth Group and several other local Church Youth Groups to a Jesus Music festival in Myrtle Beach.  We camped out and I got sunburned on the tops of my feet.  I was awed by the sound and wind and surf.  It was too cold to go in the water, but the sight and sound never left me.  In fact, they changed me forever.

I grew up in Ohio and Kentucky.  Nothing I ever saw in either of those places moved me, or still moves me the way the ocean does.  I have seen the Pacific Ocean, it was not peaceful, it was cold in fact.  It was the first rocky beach I had ever seen,  I have been to the Caribbean and just lost my way watching the water.  I have been on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and while they are grand, they don’t move me the way the ocean does.

I have been to the tops of mountains in the Appalachians and the Rockies and to the “top of the World”, well at least Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier Park.  The mountains will always be in me, but it is salt water that owns my heart. I love the way it smells and the feel of the wind flowing over the water to cool me down on a hot day.  I don’t get to the beach often enough.  We have lived here for almost a month and working on the house has kept me away.  I only live about 1.5 miles from the beach as the crow flies, but life interferes with my plans to go.  I do sit on the dock in back under our big old oak tree and watch the mullet jump up after bugs.  Sometimes I have a bowl of ice cream or a refreshing beverage and just “be”.  I forget sometimes that life is intended to be lived and not put off.

 

If there is something you would like me to write about, send me a comment and I’ll consider it.  If a subject is not up my alley, I’ll let you know.  Although a new alley can be an adventure.