Are you missing it?
I wonder if there will ever be a time when even the thought of being near the ocean won’t make me want to cry.
I wonder that because I sit here, on a beautiful and glorious Saturday morning, outside of a coffee shop, just reveling in the nothing. I watch traffic. I look at the huge cottonwoods on the corner. I notice how the dappled shade changes and shifts and dances slowly across the parking lot pavement. And the hum and methodical rhythm of the noises of the city lull me into that sweet space of just being. And thinking. And feeling. And at this moment, not doing.
It is such a welcome reprieve, to just experience and sit back and take in the scent of coffee and spices on a very gentle breeze. You know the kind of breeze that every once in a while barely lifts your hair and makes you feel so beautiful, as though someone is leaving the softest trail of kisses along your shoulders and behind your neck? Yeah. Like that.
That’s what reminds me of being near that water: that insane belly flip of something awesome. The experiential spot of being an observer of the most magnificent forces on earth. I just love it. It brings me closer to knowing God than almost anything, touching me so deeply and profoundly that I just want to lie back and let it wash over me forever.
Every once in a while, the techno music from the pizza joint next door tries to bust through my lovely space, or the woman one table over complaining over every catalogued moment of her life, dating back to 2007, and I want to flick those intrusions away like a fly. In the words of Thomas the Train – that makes me cross.
Why do we choose to miss so much? Why can’t we look around and pause and taste what it’s like to live more often? At what point in our lives does negative stuff become more important and more fulfilling than the explosion of nature’s colors and the wickedly exciting embrace of the wind and the glorious heat of the sun?
There is beauty everywhere. I urge you to see it. Seek it. Protect it. Dance with it.
Let it bring you to tears every now and again.
Worth it.
Swear.
