I am sitting seaside, people watching, hiding in the shade down at the water’s edge. I am nearing the end of a very long stay at the beach. It’s been an on-again-off-again lonely time. My husband, The Trip Planner, set us up to be “snow birds” this year, so we took the long drive from Ohio to Florida, have taken some side trips here and there, but for the most part have fallen into a quiet rhythm in south Florida. About a month in, though, I was getting antsy. I almost jumped on a plane to go home for a bit. It felt too long away from family, from friends. Too long away from my sweet dog. I have felt guilty being here. And too young to be a “snow bird.” But then it occurred to me, maybe I should just embrace this gift ...  as a retreat of sorts. From the events of the past few years. From Cleveland winter, of course. From “real life.” 

As I watch the pretty young things amble by, I realize that this year marks my 40th reunion year from high school. I am thinking now of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her book, Gift from the Sea. It was given to me by my friend and I used quotes from it for a speech I was chosen to give at my high school graduation. Thinking about Mrs. Lindbergh now, I chuckle. At the time, I thought she was an old lady, writing about her life in the past tense, but I’ve since found out that she was only 49 years old, in the midst of raising five children. That’s younger than am I now. Re-reading her little book again, I appreciate her words, written so beautifully about life, marriage, raising a family, being a woman in the “modern age” of the 1950s. 

Lindbergh wrote then about the challenges of women in the 20th Century, using philosopher and psychologist, William James’ description “Zerrissenheit” – or "torn-to-pieces-hood.” To combat “being shattered into a thousand pieces,” by trying to be everything to everyone, she writes that women must “consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work.” (This was in 1955, mind you. After a massive World War. After she had had a child abducted and murdered. Her husband was a famous aviator, she was an aviator herself, as well as a poet and writer.) When I think of myself quoting Mrs. Lindbergh as a 17-year-old in 1982, I am embarrassed at how sage I thought I was. Here I am, all these years later, finding her words so relevant in the 21st Century. 

I came upon that graduation speech recently while packing to move. Holding it in my hands, all wrinkled and faded, I remember typing it out on my mother’s massive old typewriter at our huge, round Formica kitchen table. I quoted the book, “I am packing to leave my island. What have I for my efforts, for my ruminations on the beach? What answers or solutions have I found for my life? I have a few shells in my pockets, a few clues, only a few.” I used Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s words as a metaphor for graduation. I wrote, 

“It is time to launch from our island. The shells we’ve collected in our pockets are varied: sharp, spiny, smooth, speckled. If we put any of them to our ears, familiar sounds would surely echo. The home room gossip, the exhausted, slap happy giggles of volleyball practice, the much-too-loud music of dances, the silence backstage before that one big line.” 

Re-reading my words, saying them out loud, I actually still like them. 

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote Gift from the Sea while on a retreat on Captiva Island, a sheller’s paradise on Florida’s west coast, before south Florida became chock-a-block full of people and cars. It must have been heavenly back then. Lindbergh spent her time combing the beaches every morning for treasures and inspiration. The seashore I am on is nothing like that. It is a busy, cosmopolitan beach with high rises on the roiling, ever-changing Atlantic east coast of Florida. This is not a shell beach. It is constantly having to be reconstituted with sand that is forever being pulled out by the tides. I am not collecting shells, but treasures are to be found here, as well. 

Wonder: The ocean is a wondrous place, full of beauty, and mystery. From our seaside perch, I have seen schools of fish, manta rays, sting rays, manatees, and sharks. It is fun to watch people experience the ocean – either once again, or for the first time. When my youngest daughter first saw the ocean at nine months old, she stared out at it and just muttered, “Big water.” Some first timers are timid, tip-toeing into the water, trying to levitate over it even as they move into it, arms rising up, up, up as they tepidly submerse by inches. Others, like my husband, the Merman, go all in immediately, plunging under the waves to get the shock over with. Those new to the ocean can get overwhelmed by its mystery. “Eek! Something touched me!” I hear every now and then. “What was that?!” For those of us who scuba dive, we know there are plenty of things under the surface. Generally, they are not interested in clumsy, fleshy humans splashing in the shallows. But yes, fish live in the ocean.

Perspective: Like looking up into the night sky as a kid, looking out over the ocean gives me perspective on life – especially first thing in the morning or in the quiet, long shadows of late afternoon, when all the sun worshipers have gone. It is a cliché, but my problems, troubles, worries all seem smaller, impermanent, ephemeral next to the grandeur of the mighty Atlantic. I imagine all that she’s seen over her millions of years and realize that no matter what my own issue or worry, like the tide, “this too shall pass.” Glaciers, hurricanes, still water, rip tides ... nothing lasts forever. It all keeps moving. Forever.

Joy: There is a vast current of humanity flowing through this area, like a jet stream: Cuban, South American, Puerto Rican, Orthodox Jews, Hasidic Jews, Quebecois … me. No matter their age, race, religion, self- identification, I have seen that humans who come to the beach find joy here, either in the time together, the solace of a good book and a quiet lounge chair, or just laying, exposed to the sun, drinking in all that Vitamin D. When my oldest daughter first saw the ocean at about nine months old, I literally had to restrain her from going all in, head first. She was thrilled by it. As I walk down the beach now, I see children squealing as the waves chase them, like sandpipers, back and forth, the water licking their heels. Others dig away at the sand, their chubby little hands fervently working to form it into a mound, a castle, a moat, thrilling at their own ingenuity. “I have discovered this thing! Sand castles!” 

Calm: It’s hard to be agitated at the beach. I think it’s the negative ions wafting from the water, soothing humans’ spirits. I see a grandmother walking quietly, holding hands with her granddaughter, both taking in the calm. I remember doing the same thing with my middle daughter while I was pregnant with my youngest. I was so nervous about this little person who was no longer going to be the baby. “Is she ready for this?”I thought. “Am I?” I remember the water shush, shush, shushing on the sand that day, as it is now, sounding like Mother Earth quieting an agitated baby. “Shhhh ... There there, now. All is well.”

Butt Cheeks: So many butt cheeks. My seaside research shows that, while the string bikini thong bathing suits are fading in popularity, the beach fashion de jour is now the “cheeky” bikini bottom. The tiny V on the butt reveals, in a perfect body, firm little butt cheeks that one could bounce a quarter off. Young and older gals alike parade the beach in the “cheekies.” I marvel at the bravery or don’t-give-a-crap mentality of some older gals. There they are, letting it literally all hang out. My 17-year-old self might snigger at those fleshy, jiggly bodies. But now, I tip my large sun hat to them. “Good on ya, madam,” I say to myself. “Gotta love that body positivity.”

Boobies: They are birds. My husband, the Bird Man, pointed these birds out to me that look like compact seagulls, but are divers and swimmers. It is interesting to watch them search for, find and capture their prey. Beautiful, efficient, stealthy. He’s clearly fascinated, too. Every afternoon he grabs his sunglasses, large brimmed hat, and cooler and heads out to the beach, mumbling, “Gotta keep an eye on those boobies.”

I’m sure he is talking about the birds ... 

Right?