A Beach Walk

March

I have been in south Florida for just over a month now. In late February and March, it's a great place to escape the cold remnants of winter in the Midwest. This particular winter seemed to nettle my brain a bit. One too many polar vortex’s this year for many of us in the great white north.   Where we live in Florida is not on the beach, but it is close enough to make walking to it, and on it, a frequent activity. So today I’m pondering the power of the place where the sand meets the sea, and the clarity of thought that experiencing it can provide. 

To me, there is nothing like a morning walk on the beach to clear my head. For a clinical Type-A personality like mine, this provides the circumstances where relaxation can truly begin.  It's a place I can turn off the world and live in the moment. Be calm. No plan, other than putting one foot in front of the other and “feeling”. It’s something that can stimulate all your senses if you let it. Or you can just let it sedate you if you’re looking for that.

When the day is just right and I am making tracks on the beach, I try just to feel.  In fact, I generally don’t even have to try.  It simply happens.  I can focus on each of my senses in turn, and the words just seem to flow. Like an effervescence of thoughts that bubble forth as I absorb nature’s tonic. Each step leads me to a new place. To sensorial satiation.  Today, let’s go together...

First, it starts with your initial steps into the sand, and how unusual it is to negotiate compared to the solid ground you just departed.  Different muscles are required to help you keep your balance. It is also unique the way sand feels in relation to the water. Its warmth is balanced by the coolness of the sea. At the water's edge you experience the waves and the rhythmic way they each invigorate you, cooling your feet and legs as they sweep around you. Your toes sinking slowly in the smooth, wet sand.

Often this is balanced by the roughness of the seemingly infinite number of shells that crunch under your feet there. Each step reminds you of the circle of life for sea creatures and the inevitability of their outer skeletons slowly becoming the sand in which they once thrived. And how sharp they can become as the waves hone their edges!

The wind seems always to be present at the beach, whether a gentle breeze or a near gale.  Either of which serves to ruffle your hair and cools your bear arms, legs and face from a relentless sun.  It also stirs up the smells of the salt air, filled with the aroma of nature’s seafood shop, mingling with the coconutty scent of sunburnt beach goers. Often, it carries a whiff of coffee from a nearby barista, or the sudden scent of bacon from a beachside café. Your mouth watering at the thought. The taste of salt with each breath adds to your hunger. The dryness of your lips exacerbating a growing thirst.  A Margarita comes to mind as your inner voice begins singing the tunes of Jimmy Buffet.

You plod joyfully onward. The tightness of the muscles in your legs grows as you negotiate the turbulence of sand and surf.  You must often look down to help keep your balance and avoid creatures living and dead that lie on this interchange between land and sea.  The sounds of nature are ever present. The screeching of gulls, The whine of an Osprey, the whistling of the wind, the crashing of the surf. Often mixing in with a cocktail cacophony of human sounds. A collective symphony in an oceanographic auditorium. 

Yet still, you often look around to take note of a rainbow-like palette of visual stimuli.  You notice the ever-changing colors of the sea and sky. The interplay of puffy, white clouds and their shadows on the shimmering waves. Deep blues, light blues, turquoise, greens, greys and even black.  The sea and accompanying sky have their own spectrum of colors and shades.  Reflecting both the light and its collective mood. 

Like the colors, the sea can quickly change its disposition. You sense this, as a larger wave washes up and wets your behind, nearly knocking you off your feet. The retracting wave unsuccessfully pulls you toward the abyss.  It is overwhelming to consider the power and the immensity of the sea and how the sand stands as the only barrier between the awesomeness of nature and the destructiveness of humans.

You recall our ancestors emerged from the sea to dwell upon land and slowly evolved into a species that could destroy it.  Disturbing to say the least.  Then you remember the power of the sea. It most certainly will outlast any adversary.  It is timeless.  And you relax again. Calm.

Yes, there is nothing like a walk on the beach to clear your head. To make you slow down and think.  To make you feel the intensity of what your senses can grant you, when you let them.  And make you appreciate the largess of the sea, the timelessness, and our own relative insignificance.  And I am ok with that. Now I am pondering that margarita! What a life!