Salt air & open sky

Water has followed me my entire life. As a child, the pool could be refuge. Now I walk circles in the water for the rhythm of it, and I love the rare, bright surprise of swimming near turtles. Water helps me return to my body and to the simple pleasure of being here.

For a long time, I have wanted to live by the beach. Two walks a day come to mind: one to greet the morning, another to stroll beside the shore. Beach air, shells, grasses, waves, and sunlight moving across the water can feel like Heaven on earth to me. One afternoon barefoot at the shoreline, it became clear: this shell, this sunlight, this quiet counted too. Granting myself permission to create margin—to wander without a schedule, with room to roam—I could savor the day I was already living.

As evening comes to a North Florida beach, I love to watch the sunset color the whole sky. The sun is not sinking into the Atlantic before me; its light arrives in soft sweeps of pink and purple above the shore. Seagulls call and wheel through the air, and pelicans glide with that unhurried, ancient grace. The scene feels majestic, and I want to stay until the last color softens.

At Jekyll Island I walked in the rain, rode bikes, watched dolphins, and swam in the ocean. The sea became my North Star. My dream of a beach house is also a dream of margin: mornings I can linger inside, beauty I have time to notice, and days with that much sky in them.

The woman who wrote Honing In to Home was learning to stay rooted in family, faith, and the life within her four walls. The woman at present writing the book Stillness, Solitude, and Silence—a reflection on this season of slowing down and returning to herself—is opening those windows wider. The sea gives that expansion a horizon. Belonging remains dear to me, with a new freedom to explore beyond the familiar and feel at home within myself.

Contemplation comes easily beside the sea. Mesmerizing is the rhythm of a wave arriving and receding; thoughts can drift through me without drawing me away from the shore. Perhaps, as you read, you can picture that silvery sweep and soft retreat, letting a little of what weighs on you wash away.