Detours of Our Lives

Many of us have ideas of what our life will be like.  We’ll fall in love with this type of person, find a place to live (a certain neighborhood, a particular house, the “right” apartment), work to attain a certain job.  Our goals and dreams are often realized, and we can feel pretty good about things.

During the past week, I heard or came across many stories of people whose lives had presented something totally unexpected, and not in a good way: a child with disabilities, a lost job, the loss of a home, an accident.  For these people, their life was suddenly off-course; it veered in a direction they had not anticipated.

What does one do?  There is the initial shock and then “Why me?”  As we come to accept things as they are, we have some options.  If we can get past regret for what has happened, and if don't allow the fear of the future to swallow us whole, then what we have is today. Things are the way they are. In each moment, we can choose how to react and behave.  If we have children, we can be a role model, or instead transmit all our fears, disappointment and anger to them.

A devastating loss may require we seek professional help to deal with the situation.  Many people suffering the loss of a loved one, which is a natural life passage, often see a therapist or grief counselor because they feel unable to move on. 

However, with each of these people telling their stories, something amazing happened. Each and every one about whom I read felt that the unexpected change in their life brought out some strength they didn't know they had and ultimately made them a better human being.  That’s not to say life was easy or they didn’t have sleepless nights or have to work hard to get their lives into a more manageable place. Yet in living the experience, they were able to get beyond feeling like a victim and find some learning, some new understanding that affected their life view.

We may need help in tough situations.  We’ll likely need time to figure out how to cope with a new reality.  The question is whether we can come through not embittered and having found some glimmer of gratitude for where we are now.

My Present

The beach is strewn
With a thousand
Shells, rocks, sticks, fossils.
Each has a story to tell
Of how it came to be
Here.

Every day something new
Speaks to me.
Though seemingly random,
There is a timeless march
Of water, sea and sand.

A gull swoops down for breakfast.
Waves slosh against rocks and shore.
Pulling back to leave their
Cross hatch vestiges
Which perplex me.

It is here
Day after day
Time immemorial
My present.

In the Moment of Waves

We all know that primordial sound of waves on the shore.  The ebb and flow, the never-ending cycles of time, of life.  A metaphor for the womb, for give and take, for life's struggles.

If you were to travel around the world experiencing waves lapping at different shores, would they sound the same?  Or would each have its own unique rhythm on a calm and sunny day? 

A wave crashing on the shore has many different components.  It furls close to shore, and at its loudest, crescendos onto land, where it quiets and then fizzes bubbles for several seconds before receding.  With every ebb and flow, the sea leaves its white latticework in the shallows, which never fully disappears but reforms with the next wave.  Every now and then there will be just a moment of silence, like the space between an in-breath and out-breath.  No two waves are ever the same.

Hearing the waves is a comfort, the sounds recurring over and over. The water brings an energy with it, an encouragement or perhaps an urgency.  There can be tenderness, with several waves merely lapping; lest I become too complacent the next may crash, sending water over my ankles and up to my knees.  The next minute the water, clear and unspoiled, feels like velvet on my feet.

I've been mystified by the crosshatch design left on the sand by the retreating waves.  I cannot understand why it appears that way all along the beach.  The air has a faintly briny smell which is only perceptible when the wind pauses.

Around the rocks is a grand slithering as smaller rocks and pebbles are pulled back with a mighty drag.  And there's a tucking in around the rocks in the gentler ebbs, where the slithering turns into a soft gurgle.  Hearing all the sounds together is a symphony, one that is made up as it goes along.  Sounds I love always and never tire of.