Far From the Beach

 

No one who has ever interpreted my astrological chart has failed to mention that I should live near water--preferably a large body of water. But I live far from any ocean or seashore. I live high up above 7,000 feet in altitude; far from any large body of water. Sure, there's the glaciers atop the mountains (what's left of them), and there are babbling mountain brooks and streams and rivers, and a few man-made lakes and ponds, but certainly no place where you could dock a sizable boat.

 

I carry a lone small imperfect pearl with me. To some extent, I can connect to the ocean through this pearl, though it doesn't bring me the smell of the salty ocean air. I can almost smell it, though, if I lose myself in it enough. Like a seashell, the sound of waves crashing in on a beach is recreated in the folds of my noggin. I can mentally put myself on a beach fairly quickly, but there is a quality of experience that is different in the actual presence of water. Water visualized is soothing, but the shear power of water in its physical state, as in waves crashing in on a beach, can connect you to both the planet and the universe in a very profound elemental way.

 

Thank goodness for the river that is just a block away from where I live. It allows me to connect to water directly whenever I wish. It is often and regular that I walk to the river or along the river. There are many spots along the river that are very quiet; where all you can hear is the babbling of the water over the rocks. Water is a gateway that can be used to traverse dimensions.

 

Thinking back over my life, I see that I have most always been fairly close to some kind of water--although it has more often than not been in the form of a river or pond rather than a mighty ocean or large lake. There were several times in my life when I connected to water in very profound ways. These are all joyful memories.

 

 

Chesapeake Bay

 

 

I crossed the Atlantic Ocean a couple of times when I was a wee youngster, but I have no memories. From kindergarten to 3rd grade I lived in the brutal desert of Southern New Mexico where water was a scarce commodity. My first memorable experiences with water came when I was in 4th and 5th grades and living in Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay.

 

My dad would take me fishing. That's what he called it, anyway. He didn't even own a piece of fishing gear, and he never actually fished. He didn't even like fish that much. We would drive down to the Bay to the fishing pier. My dad would go out onto the pier, but he never fished. All he did was talk with the other fishermen for an hour or two. That's what he called fishing.

 

Well, that's boring to a kid. I spent that time goofing off and wandering along the shoreline. While my dad gabbed away, I played along the edge of the water, my gaze directed out over the water. It was just the Chesapeake Bay and not the ocean, but it still seemed so vast to me. With my mind, I traveled into the air above the water and flew for hours over the water, following it down the bay and into the Atlantic. Sometimes, I would just sit and stare at the waves, mesmerized by the constant flow. I would daydream of sailing off to distant exotic ports. The whole world is connected by oceans. Even as a kid, connecting with the Chesapeake Bay expanded my thinking to more global proportions. How can one look out over a huge body of water and not feel a connection to the planet?

 

We didn't go fishing a lot; just enough for me to develop a fondness for walking a beach and connecting to the water. After 5th grade, though, the family moved back to the dry desert of the Southwest. It would be a while before I walked a beach again.

 

 

Los Angeles

 

I was living in Los Angeles during the time of the 1984 Summer Olympics that were held there. I had wanted to move away from Los Angeles before the Olympics started--I wanted to avoid the zoo--but circumstances and confusion kept me there.

 

I had reached a turning point in my young 27-year-long life and was debating what to do next. I knew I was leaving Los Angeles, but I didn't know where I was going. I have a problem with the West Coast which later was pointed out to me by an astro-cartography reading. I have some line that runs up and down the West Coast. It's not the best of lines to be under. Under that line it is very difficult to feel at home, to have friends, to make money, or to be happy for long. It is, however, a good place to experience short intense bursts of creativity.

 

Well, all this proved true for me in regards to the one year I lived in Los Angeles. I met a lot of people but I never made any close friendships. By the end of that year I was thoroughly broke and rather miserable. But I did have a wonderful glorious burst of writing that lasted a little over two months. Now that was truly worth my stay in the city of angels.

 

But that burst was over. In later years I would also live in Oregon and Washington. I had another big burst in Washington, but in all three West Coast states I couldn't take it more than a year. I've never been able to be completely comfortable on the West Coast. I've never felt at home.

 

One thing I liked about Los Angeles is its mass transit system, especially since I did not have a car. I did a lot of site-seeing by bus. Thanks to the buses I was able to make it out to the beaches. I had been on a Pacific Ocean beach back on a high school trip to San Diego, but that was with a bunch of other kids. I wanted to go walk a beach all by myself. I wanted to connect with the ocean. But alas, all the beaches that the buses went to were very crowded and it wasn't the ocean that was the main attraction at these beaches, but rather the people. Those excursions to Venice Beach and Manhattan Beach and Santa Monica Beach were certainly interesting and enlightening, but that wasn't the experience I was looking for.

 

It was with the goal of finding a more secluded beach that I borrowed an acquaintance's car for a day. I had driven with that acquaintance once before out to Malibu and had seen how crowded all the beaches were all the way out there. So I decided I would head out past Malibu to see if I could find a secluded beach to walk.

 

To my surprise, the closer I got to Malibu, the more deserted the beaches became. How odd, I thought. The last time I was there, the beaches were packed. The traffic was terrible, but no one was going to the beaches. By the time I got to Malibu the beaches were completely deserted, and as most all of the traffic got off on the exit to Pepperdine University, I realized why the beaches were deserted. Olympic swimming was going on at the University in the hills above the beaches. I parked and walked the deserted beach. It was a delight to me to know that all the humans were up in the hills sitting around a little square cement pool of water while I had the whole wonderful beach to myself. How nice it was to be different from the crowd!

 

I walked past all the beachfront homes. I remember knowing that one of them belonged to Shirley MacLaine. I thought that would be nice to accidentally see her, but I didn't see very many people at all. I did notice one man sitting on his deck watching the Olympics on a TV. I guess he wanted the best of both worlds.

 

I kept walking and walking. I walked the beach all day. I finally found a stretch of beach with no houses and no people at all. I stopped and sat in the sand just out of the reach of the incoming waves. I sat there and communed with the ocean for what must have been a couple of hours. It was a long glorious walk along the beach back to the car.

 

I let the ocean wash me completely of all my problems. I surrendered to the constant ebb and flow of the entire universe through that humongous body of water. I was in a state of serious confusion when I arrived on the beach, but when I left I knew exactly what I was going to do and where I was going to go. And I was as calm and happy as I could be. My life changed during the course of that day at the beach.

 

 

Ocean Shores

 

I walked a few beaches in the ensuing years, but not many. I spent several days on the beaches in and around Naples, Florida one year, but I had no experience as intense as on the beach in Malibu. There was also that wonderful afternoon at the beach near Seaside, Oregon, but I was with an extended group of people at the time.

 

A beach visit that I will always remember with great joy is the weekend my little family and I spent at Ocean Shores, Washington. We had just arrived in Washington a few days before. We had secured a place to live but we couldn't move in for three days. Well, our wedding anniversary was one of those three days, so we drove our truck of possessions up to a friend's house in Seattle where we parked it for three days. We packed the kid in the car and drove to Ocean Shores on the Pacific coast of Washington.

 

Ocean Shores is a busy weekend resort town but we were there in the middle of the week so it was pretty deserted. It was the most glorious weekend vacation we had ever taken. We had been quite stressed with the move and trying to find a place to live and such, so it was great just to forget all about that and relax.

 

Our daughter was three and a half years old then. She had so much fun on that trip but doesn't remember a thing. But that's okay. I'll remember it for her. Besides, she does remember one small thing about the trip.

 

We got a room right on the beach. We were out on the beach all day; my daughter playing in the sand and the three of us taking long walks along the beach. I also spent some alone time with that mighty ocean. After eating dinner out in restaurants with views looking out over the ocean, we then went in the hot tub in the evening. The hot tubs were right out there overlooking the beach, so while we soaked in the hot water, we could see and hear the waves crashing in on the beach. We could also look up and see the stars. Oh, it was fantastic! All stress just disappeared.

 

It was in our beachfront motel room later in the evening that my honey started to take a shower, but before she turned the water on, she noticed a small green frog in the shower stall. It was tiny; no bigger than a quarter. So in order for my honey to take a shower, my daughter and I had to catch the little green frog. I did most of the catching while my daughter did most of the gawking and giggling and oohing and aahing. We let the frog loose in the flower beds of the motel. My daughter watched the frog for about ten minutes until it finally disappeared under some leaves or something. With all the fun we had that weekend, that little green frog is all our daughter remembers.