I made it to the beach today. The closeness of Water is one of the reasons I chose this retreat. It’s two blocks away – a ten minute walk at a very leisurely pace…and yet it’s taken me almost a month to get here.
Starting the walk was a challenge and I made it one, bundling myself up from cold and inertia alike.
But as soon as I reached the wet sand, watching the tiny tides roll in, everything was easy. I greeted the Chesapeake Bay as an old friend. And honored her divinity. I dipped my hands and walked along the shore. I felt wonder, and hope, and also nothing – no needs or expectations to be met. A sense of playfulness was there in the chill of an overcast February day and suddenly I needed to wade. Rolling up my pants, I wriggled my feet to the very edge of the sand, then giggled and shrieked at the freezing water lapping over my toes.
On the walk home, music memory came floating back to me. Poetry from Pete Seeger and The Byrds, by way of Ecclesiastes:
To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose
Under heaven
I’m struck by a flash of clarity: all these moments, seasons, purposes – are the same and happening simultaneously.
Because, aren’t we always mourning and rejoicing? Doesn’t every moment contain all possibilities, and none at all? And in this thought, the lyric that becomes so incredibly personal:
A time for peace –
I swear it’s not too late.
I haven’t got a clue what peace looks like for me, but it’s a warm feeling to know it’s not (it’s never) too late.
Less than an hour in the presence of nature can accomplish all this. Astonishing, breathtaking, heartbreaking, lovely.
Stones by the water catch my eye. One, along with a small bit of driftwood, speaks to me in beautiful layers. Lines added year by year in stone, and worn away in wood. Water washed by time. A time to build up, a time to break down – and a moment to experience it all.
First Retirements 