This never gets old
I was born in, what I considered, a beach town. By which I mean it didn’t take hours to travel to the beach. Although, it did take quite a while.
I liked the beach well enough. I liked to get my toes wet. To play in the sand.
But, I didn’t get those people who were daily and inexplicably drawn to the ocean. I didn’t understand the surfers who started their days with their legs dangling in the water no matter the weather and finished each day in the same way.
I liked the sun-kissed, sea tousled look but I didn’t know it was a lifestyle not a fashion choice (mostly).
All the years I lived in that ‘beach-side’ town, or in the five years James and I lived in Moruya, I rarely made it to the beach.
Now, I live 1.6ks from the beach. It takes my 3, 5 and almost 7 year old less than half an hour to run to the beach and back – in the dark, after a long day.
At night, I can hear the waves crashing on the sand. Some nights it is so loud that it seems like I’m living at the ocean’s door.
When we moved here, I was scared. Of tsunamis, floods, sharks, drownings. Of so much.
And when you live so close you learn.
That the ocean is more than waves and sand stuck in all your nooks and crannies.
Now, I get it. At least, to an extent. I’m not quite at the part where I dangle my legs into the water of a morning and evening off a surf board.
When I am anxious, I go to the ocean. The sounds of the rise and fall, the crashing, the quiet lapping calms me.
Every time I look out at the water before me I know there are countless living things doing what they do, that if I am still enough I can find them and marvel at them.
When the kids get feral, we go to the beach. We play in the sand. In the water – even in the winter months. It soothes. It tires. It heals.
If there is ever a week that passes when we don’t go to the beach/boat ramp/creek we’re either sick or away.
We’ve come to recognise the sting rays and know which is the cheeky one that enjoys flapping and scaring the pelicans. We think of places as ‘ours’.
I’m finding more to love and I’m glad that I get it now.
Do you love the ocean? Where’s your calming place?
Linking up with Jess for #ibot
