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The Rhythm of Summer

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When I was at the beach this weekend for an evening walk, I admitted out loud that if I should have to leave the coast for any reason in the future, I would really miss it. I would miss the soft ocean air and the salty tacky water as I walked lazily between the waves, sand between my toes.

This surprised even me a little. I used to think I was a mountain girl. I probably am, in all honesty. Being surrounded by trees does something to me. But recently, I have noticed a magnetic pull to the beach. Perhaps its the warmer temps. Or maybe 2 solid months of being locked inside has really done it (who’s with me here!). But the ocean does something to my very core. It’s rhythm and textures make my heart feel comforted and calm in the same way that the rhythmic swaying of a new mom can soothe a crying baby.

I think need the beach in my soul...like the air I breathe and the food I eat and the water I drink. I have heard people say things like “I don’t like how sand feels in my (feet/clothes/hair/etc).” Or “The salt water is so itchy.” Or even “I don’t like swimming in water I can’t see through.” All valid reasons, I suppose. But these are the very things I crave… the evidence of time spent by the sea. The prickly heat of the summer sun on my salty skin, cheeks flushed with too much time on the water’s edge, faces tacky from the hot and humid air. The feeling of those sandy feet washed off in makeshift showers…always with a little sand left behind on your shoes or swimsuit. It’s just all part of the feeling… of connecting with it all.

Maybe it’s not that I prefer the mountains to the sea. Maybe it’s just that I love being outside, fresh air in my lungs, sun on my cheeks, and me breathing in all this beautiful world has to offer.

So for now, I will lean in for now to these beach days. I will embrace watching each unique sunset, warm salty air on my skin, that gentle sway that mother nature has me cleaved to her chest, swaying back and forth gently into that rhythm of summer once again.

Spaciousness

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Space.

I am looking for some space to clear my head these days. Clear my lungs.

I seek it everywhere. At my desk. On my back porch. Near the water. In the quiet of my bedroom. I need space. Air so full it washes over me like a waterfall - powerful and full of life.

So each day right now, I come here seeking that release… that special moment. Each day I come here to this very spot to find some sanity in this crazy, mixed up time. Hoping for the winds of change to speak to me.

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You see, I was healed here once before. My heart heavy with grief and fear, I walked this lonely mile every day wondering if life would get better. Each day, I made silent prayers to the universe that this, too, would pass and that one day, I would wake up and things would be bright again. Each day I seemingly got a message that life, indeed, does go on: a family of foxes playing in the grass; a bobcat resting in the shade, dolphins leaping out of the water, tails splashing; a pack of deer crossing right in front of me; an owl perched on a branch so obviously watching us, it gave me chills; blossoming jasmine; the scent in the air dripping heavy with honeysuckle. Life was there. Every day. It kept proving itself to me.

I kept showing up. Noticing things. Breathing in that fresh air I so desperately needed. The first days were hard. I felt like I had cinder blocks attached to me, to my heart. I dragged them behind like anchors weighing down my soul along with all the years of love and loss and pain and heartbreak I had gathered in those bags around my heart. I lost a sister, a mother, a father. I lost a family , an identity, a lover - all these things once knitted together, now frayed at the edges, torn apart by life.

But it was that air that kept me coming back. Full in my lungs. Clean. New. Blowing out the old, toxic air…the toxic thoughts. The grief and sorrow all washed away by the spaciousness I created.

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In the face of this time, I am admittedly not doing well. This stuff is hard. It’s scary. I feel the same anxiousness I did before, darkness seeping into my soul like the night stealing away light, forceful and stronger than me. But I know the light will chase away the darkness soon enough. Night always yields to day. The wind blows the old away, making room for new seeds to germinate.

The thing is that I know where to find the wind, the spaciousness I seek. I know it’s there. I just have to be patient and wait for it to come once again.

What is to come...

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I want to watch the sunrise and the moon set with you. Beside me. Beside the sea. Holding hands, melting into the dreams we have for the future.

I want to wake up early, before dawn, making coffee. Routines in place, the rhythm of life present in our days, in our nights. In our hearts.

I want to love you where you are and be loved as I am. Wholly. Completely. Unapologetically.

Let’s blow away the dust of yesterday with the fresh sunshine of today on our faces, whole-hearted love in our souls. Doubt, fear, worry behind us for the pleasure of what is to come.

A Purposeful Life

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I took this photo about a year ago on a clear and crisp May evening at Folly Beach. It was one of those days that you realize the promise of summer is coming, gently at first…and then, without warning, it’s in like a lion.

Like many of us are now realizing, I took this and many other of my days for granted. I took my proximity to the beach for granted. I could, after all, go anytime I wanted to. My freedom to move around this planet on a whim was something I thought rarely about, if ever at all. What a luxury.

But now, I sit in my quarantined life on this gorgeous April day. The sun is shining and temperatures are climbing to the mid 80s this afternoon, creeping slowly into a reminder that summer is around the corner. Today is a perfect day to sit with my toes in the sand and breath in the fresh sea air. It’s just the kind of day I would be planning a picnic with friends, walking down the beach holding hands with my guy, or even heading there alone to be in stillness.

I miss the sea. I never thought about not having access to it much before. But I miss it. I want to breathe in the fresh, cottony air in my lungs and feel it wrap around my skin like cool summer sheets. I want to be itchy with salt and sand and sunburn on my shoulders. I want to hear the gulls squawk around me as they scavenge for the little scraps of food and crumbs we drop.

If there is anything this time has taught me, it’s that I want to live simply again, but with purpose. I want to live in the moments I took for granted with the people I assumed would always be there. I want to remember what actually matters. Freedom. Joy. Relationships. And good health.

Most of all, I just want my life to be purposeful - lived with love and simple pleasures.

Letting joy take the wheel

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Recently I was asked about why I haven’t been writing as much lately.

I wish I had a good answer for that. But I don’t. My heart has been a little lighter these days. And writing for me is therapeutic. It has served for these recent years as a way out of the cave of despair. So these days, I have been a little less inspired - so to speak. While I wait for inspiration, my writing is taking on a new voice…one that is a little brighter and lighter.

Oddly, this feels cumbersome and uncomfortable, like an ill fitting pair of underwear you constantly need to adjust. I almost feel like I need to apologize for it.

What.In.The.World??? Where did THAT notion come from?

Where does this notion of joy equate with something I need to make amends for right now? Do we get that message from our parents at a young age? How do we internalize not being worthy of JOY?

I am not sure how to steer the car with confidence riding shotgun instead of that smug bitch, fear, sitting in the front seat controlling and questioning my every move. I am used to the commands she makes and insecurities she dishes out… always making me apologize for myself and suggesting that in some ways, I have gotten what I deserved.

A little joy is a terrifying thing for me. I sit waiting and wondering when it will all come crashing down again. Sitting with joy often makes me feel like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. She makes me uncomfortable in her kindness.

So while I wait, and wonder, (and perhaps schedule an appointment with my therapist), I will just keep working on how to lose those feelings of Doubt and Fear along this long stretch of highway. I will keep being myself…writing and taking photos along the way. Holding hands and settling in to my new relationship with Joy whenever I can.

While I am here, I will be certain to drive happily by those hitchhikers, Fear and Uncertainty, on the side of the road…not a thought of stopping at the mere sight of them. I’ll have no guilt for speeding by this time. They’ve been in this car on this very stretch of road with me before and honestly, they are horrible passengers.

I am ready

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A quick story.

On a visit to the upstate, we were coming back from a quick grocery store trip and I suddenly yelled to my sweet, obliging driver “PULL OVER!”

“Really?”

“Yes. I want to take a picture.”

This is a repeated story in my life. Only, up until a few months ago, I didn’t really do it. I just wanted to.

I have spent most of my life trying to live small. I was afraid - afraid of inconveniencing everyone around me, afraid of being too high maintenance, afraid of having needs and wants.

I am not sure what to attribute to this newfound confidence and voice. Is it a new relationship that has me seeing things differently - including myself (or rather, especially myself)? Is it my ripening age? Or is it that I have finally had it with putting my life on hold? Whatever the reasons, I am happy to speak my needs and shout out for the opportunities that have so often passed me by fields on a country backroad.

So many things whiz by you when you don’t speak up. Jobs. Love. Even simple photos of old, decaying barns that perhaps I just want. Living small is just not worth it. I have paused my life for so many people and I am ready, finally, to live for myself.

I am ready…finally.

A New Year

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We all seem ready to usher out last year right now. I have been seeing more about the change of the decade this year than I can ever remember before now…2020 seems to be the hope that we are all clinging on to in this firestorm of life.

That seems like a lot of pressure though…giving a whole set of unrealistic expectations and demands that it can’t live up to.

Don’t get me wrong… I get needing hope. I get wanting change. While I have had some bad years, this wasn’t one of them. But I have been ready to boot years to the curb. I have felt pain and grief and loss like you cannot even imagine. I have dealt with personal struggle that should have made me quit the game of life long ago. But here I am standing at the end of this year reflecting on what magic has become because I somehow managed to make it further along in my little story.

In all those bad years and in all the time that I was trying to heal myself, I never leaned heavily on the year or decade ahead to get me through it all. That’s a lot of expectation for something that may not be able to deliver. The work came from me. Facing it. Trudging through it all. Doing the work. Showing up. It was on my shoulders…nothing else could help me but Me.

While I love the concept of a fresh start on New Year’s Day, I am not keen on the pressure and responsibility we seem to be handing over to it - especially at the turn of a new decade. It seems particularly heavy and destructive. It’s almost like handing keys to a toddler and saying “go ahead and drive this car for me.”

So this year on New Year’s Eve, instead of remarking about what I am looking forward to and running towards, I will gently tell 2019 “Thank you for the lessons, both big and small. I am grateful for what you taught me.”

I am ready for your lessons 2020. Let’s do this.

Finding my way

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A few years ago, my brother-in-law had a massive stroke. This stroke wasn’t caused by poor lifestyle choices or a genetic predisposition to strokes, but rather due to a genetic malformation in his brain that, up until the age of around 45, he was pretty unaware of.

What I found most curious about his condition was that he was born without some major arteries in his brain. To compensate, his body made up peripheral arteries to make up for this faulty wiring and he lived pretty much unscathed and healthy for years on end and continues to do so.

The magic of the human body never ceases to amaze me. It finds ways to do the things it needs to, regardless of imperfections and flaws in the system.

Nature seems to be the same way. Water gets to where it needs to. Seeds plant themselves and grow in places they aren’t always intended to. Life always seems to find a way.

Next time you are struggling, remember the water that makes it’s own path after deliberate work. Remember the seeds that seem to grow in the cracks of the cement out of sheer determination. Remember that this, too, shall pass and life will go on as it should.

Supporting Skies

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I almost discarded this photo on my phone today. Scrolling around for memories, I stumbled across this subtle, washed out photo in a sea of dramatic sunrise shots. I was out for a walk during a moody August sunrise at Folly Beach, the sky playing dramatic tricks on me with each passing second. It felt true to my mood at the time. The sky was stormy, but the light was not having it. The sunrise came out to play that day. But this little Southern sky was playing nothing but a supporting role in the morning.

I stopped moments before I hit the delete button, because despite it’s humble appearance amidst conspicuously gorgeous and fire laden sunrise skies, this photo stunned me with it’s simplicity. The hued blue-grey color palette with it’s subtle pinkish, creamy accent seemed so forgotten. It seemed to fight for attention and it’s own role.

It got me thinking about how we overlook situations like this. Sometimes we are so busy looking at the dramatic sunrise that we overlook the subtle, supporting skies. Much like we don’t notice that mom in the audience as her son takes center stage in a starring role. We forgetting that she, too, has a key role here. She provided support, meals, comfort and endless hours as he honed his skills, making magic for the rest of us. We tend to forget the ones in a supporting role, the ones who support that big, massive, shining star.

But maybe that’s okay too, because that sunrise won’t be looking at me while it makes it’s way through the morning sky. It will look directly at the billowing clouds that allowed it to take center stage.

And that is enough.

Free to float

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I have been standing at the water’s edge for a long time, watching the waves lap against the Lowcountry shore in wonder of what’s out there. I have been afraid to jump in and swim around in the salty waters because of the dangers that lurk beneath the surface.

What was I missing out on by letting fear drive the ship? Was there something bad under the surface? Or just stories or random encounters I let take over?

When fear drives, we believe things that might be untrue. We believe if our friend gets bitten by a crab in the water, we will too. We believe that sharks lurk below waiting to attack us for their next meal because someone 3 beaches away had that happen and we saw it on the news. We believe in box jellyfish and man of wars and things that we have actually never seen ourselves. We believe in the worst.

But what happens when you release and dive in? You float. You surf. You bob around in the warm waters and find your way. You feel free and untethered. There are no crabs nibbling on your toes, no sharks looking for a meal. It’s just you falling into what is.

Let fear go. Stop standing on the edge and watching the fearless live your beautiful, unencumbered life. You will float. You will be fine. There is nothing lurking in the deep, dark corners this time.

You are free to float.

The Sacredness of Food.

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I am one of those weird people who finds cooking therapeutic and relaxing. When I tell this to people, they often stare through me, as though I am speaking another language of sorts. Sometimes people mumble back to me, “how do you have time for all that?” or “I just can’t be bothered…too much work!”

I get it. I really do…there are many days that I feel like take out is the best option. But there is something so mystical that I get lost in during the cooking process. Somewhere in the rhythm of chopping, mincing, and mixing, I get a little lost from the thoughts that plague the reality of my life. I get lost in the sacred ritual of it all.

For me, cooking is very definitive. It has a beginning, a middle and an end that usually happen in hours - as opposed to the days or weeks some projects can take. Whether you are baking a chicken or making a cake, the results are instantaneous and tangible. While I can make a cake in an afternoon, it could take days - even weeks and yes, sometimes months - for me to plan, shoot, edit, and deliver photos to a client.

Mostly though, it’s the end result. Feeding someone is giving them a gift you made yourself. When I cook, there is a sacredness to making the meal…I think about what people love, what they need…what they crave. I put energy into sourcing ingredients - where can I get the most delicious produce? Who has the best meats? Who has the “right” food for the meal at hand? The mere process of combining flavors, textures, and smells together makes it feel like art - like a painting coming together in all it’s vibrancy. It’s carefully crafted and created just for them.

So next time you sit down to a meal that someone has made, give pause and think of what went into making it. Or, when you endeavor to make your next meal for someone, think of the gift in the creation of it all. There is a sacredness in the food itself. There is a sacredness in the presentation and the process.

And then, after you think about all of that, dive in with love.

My world in a seashell

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I have many memories of my father. He was a passionate and sensitive man who was raised in a time where it wasn’t really accepted to be a sensitive man. But it was always within him, even if it was stuffed down and suffocated by the masculinity and machismo that ruled the world at that time. Whenever we visited the beach - or the seashore, as he called it - he would marvel at the colors of the seashells. “Just look at the colors,” was a perpetual exclamation as we strolled along the seashore, picking up tiny shells along the way, gazing at the rainbow sherbet sunsets of Kiawah Island, where he retired long before I graduated from high school.

He didn’t grow up embracing the loveliness of the little things in life because his siblings wouldn’t have stood for it. Led by fear (and maybe a little ignorance), they would have given him a proper bashing for it, I am sure. But in his distance from his family and surrounded by people who made him feel safe, he was allowed the space to marvel at some of the most magnificent creations on this planet. Moreover, he was allowed to be more who he wanted to be.

My dad recreated himself over the course of his life. He came from very little, and left behind his upbringing in the East Midlands of Post-war England to start over in the USA - the land of opportunity. In his early days here, he worked hard all day, saving money to make a difference for the future of him and his family. Each night, he would go home to his quarters at the local YMCA, dreaming of his future, scheming of how to get there. He feared nothing, often standing bravely in the face of so things that would many of us crumble and give up. The man NEVER.GAVE.UP. He was resilient, resourceful and had a blind faith in life. Most of all, he was always there for us as a family, holding us both emotionally and physically up when whenever we needed it.

All that is important and significant to who he was as a person....

But along with that, he was vulnerably sensitive. He felt deeper than he would ever have admitted…. perhaps more than he even intellectually understood. He saw colors in seashells and vulnerability in animals. He loved flowers and sunsets and babies and puppies and sent me more cat litter advertisements than I would really admit to most people (“now this is a good ad, love…” was something he said often to my young, art director self). He loved us with silence and strength. His heart was kind, but it showed mostly when he felt safe to show it to you - like a dog that had been beaten down, you had to win his trust and affection. He was a dichotomy of fierce love, strong will, and a gentle sensitivity that is unmatched in most humans.

So each time I walk down the beach, this is what replays in my mind like a broken record: “Just look at the colors.”

I see him, walking next to me, bent over to pick up the nearest shell and marvel at it, like countless others before it. Warm corals. Bright yellows. Creamy pinks. Cerulean Blues. Vibrant purples. He’d look to the sunset and telling me to see as many as I could in my life, reminding me that - like snowflakes - no 2 sunsets are the same. It’s like an old movie in my head, flickering quietly to the background soundtrack of Charleston’s warm ocean waves lapping gently against my feet.

I see him in the seashells and the sunrises. I see him in the babies splashing in the surf and the sandpipers running along the shoreline. And if I silence my mind, I can feel him - his gentle and strong arm, leading me just to where I need to be.

Oh, Joy.

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About a month ago, I found myself smack dab in the center of Joy. I didn’t navigate my way there. I just stumbled upon it, like a secret garden or a hidden hot spring that nobody can quite tell you how to get to. It happened right here, at a Mumford & Sons concert.

It sort of snuck up on me. It tapped me on the shoulder a few times, but I ignored it - chalking it up to a song or the energy of the room that night. It was, after all, a great concert. But at the end of the last song, I stepped back, away from the crowd, and I just took a breath. It was in that moment of space that I gave myself that I recognized where I was. Smack dab in the middle of Joy.

It was bound to happen. I had been denying myself Joy for so long….pretending like it didn’t even exist. Maybe I just didn’t recognize it because it had been gone for so long. So each time I saw it, I looked away, seeking it in some other format. Or maybe not at all.

Depriving ourselves of joy is not new. We do it for many reasons. I think mine was a sort of self-flagulation, as if I didn’t deserve a relationship with Joy….as if I wasn’t meant to live side by side in the presence of something so simple and true to our well being. I wish I had a better explanation of why I have left Joy behind in a dustcloud - shame, guilt and fear all vying for shotgun in my life, but I don’t. It’s silly and ridiculous and I wish I didn’t feel this way. But the fact is that I do. Or at least I did.

After I snuck away from the mosh pit of humans that night, I squared myself up center to the stage - iPhone in hand to take a shot. I took a deep breath in and smiled, just lingering in the moment a little. That’s when I realized Joy was back. And there we were… face-to-face, hand-in-hand with all the other couples in the back of the room. We cozied up and renewed our long lost commitment to one another, dancing under the confetti like we had just renewed our holy vows.

And if you, too, are seeking Joy in your life, I think you can find it tucked away at the crossroads of love and gratitude. Just make sure you don’t bypass it as you take a direct route on the superhighway to where you think it should be. It’s not clearly marked on that map someone tricked you into believing. There are no shortcuts. No direct routes. No signs pointing to a singular destination. It’s tricky to find and even harder to recognize. But once you arrive, you’ll know it.

Tiny Changes

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These little flowers changed my day in a big way today.

This morning I sat waiting for a client in a sweet, local cafe. It’s raining and the temperature has dropped a good 20 degrees over the past 24-hours. It’s gloomy, grey and wet… a mirror of my heavy heart these days. Between saying goodbye to our family dog a few short weeks ago and dealing with the rest of regular life like taxes, prom planning, bills and laundry, I just feel like I am moored to Life.

As I sat there, I looked down at the clean, marbled table and paused to notice this tiny vase and these little perfect flowers curling and weaving around each other. I was baffled at their delicate strength. I was consumed by their simplicity for a moment. I became curious about their unassuming gentleness and forgiving nature. They made me stop my train of though for a brief a minute…to pause, to breathe. To remember to forget and to let go.

Life can be altered in these little moments. They are the moments that encourage us to lean in. They are the moments that encourage us to breath, pause, remember or forget. They can be transitional and transformative. But mostly, they are when we can learn to tolerate ourselves, our stories, our lives, and all the things that wait for us beyond their delicate and perfect features.

Changes usually come to us when we are ready. But sometimes, I think the biggest changes can come to us in the tiniest moments, bravely weaving and curling their way gently into our tender, aching hearts.

Loss

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I’ve been looking for that sliver of blue sky lately - the tiny slice of hope that keeps us going through the dark and stormy times - wondering if the sun was going to ever shine back down on my heavy heart again.

I am in a stage of loss right now – something all too familiar to me. I have experienced loss before… Parents. A sister. Aunts and uncles. Friends. Pets. To be honest, loss never gets easier. And it doesn’t diminish at any stage. The overall feeling is still the same.

Loss comes in many forms. And so does the grieving. It doesn’t have to be traditional - like a death. It can happen when a friend leaves your life or you have a relationship-altering disagreement with a family member. The loss of a loved one can have a ripple effect, too. Breaking up with a boyfriend or divorcing a spouse can lead to losing extended family that you thought you would be with forever.

A few years ago, I had some friends move back home to Europe. I remember the grief I felt when they were gone. It was a loss in it’s own way. I also remember having to hide it - stuff it down like it didn’t exist. They were, after all, not gone…or so everyone kept trying to remind me. But with kids in schools, different schedules, different time zones and expensive plane rides, the likelihood of us seeing one another often seemed like a fleeting hope as I watched them drive away that last time, my battered heart trailing behind them in the dust. I felt heart broken. I felt loss.

I feel it each time I drive by their street. I feel it on Saturday afternoons when we would be making plans for the an evening of dinner and conversations together that lasted late into the evening. I feel it when the weather warms up and we head to the beach, picnic in tow, empty chairs beside us. The pangs of loss can linger for a while.

But, as I sit there on the beach on these cloudy days with my picnic in tow, I just look for that sliver of blue over head. Because it’s always there… peeking through just to remind us that above all, this, too, shall pass and that that big, bright, beautiful, warming sun is always shining above those heavy clouds.

Finding Grace.

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This week was hard.

In the midst of all the missed deadlines, forgotten appointments, back to school schedules, financial disarray and angry clients, I had a brief personal training session (brief because I was late because I had the wrong time written down…I told you, not my best week). I was down… and my young, and too-wise-for-her-own-good trainer knew it. We worked hard for 20 minutes, and then she looked at me and said this: “I want you to go into the sauna for 5 minutes and close your eyes and just… be.”

It was a pass. A free ticket. A permission slip.

It was permission to be – to be still, to be quiet, to be imperfect. It was a pass to slip away from my life for a moment in time. It was my ticket back to me. It was permission.

I feel like we all need something like this…someone to occasionally, out-of-the-blue, step in and say “I GIVE YOU PERMISSION…” on those days when we maybe forget to have the grace ourselves to give us a much needed break. We are not supposed to go hard all the time - and it’s particularly difficult to be mindful of this during the time of year where everyone looks like they are cramming for life’s finals with resolutions and magical words of empowerment. January can be hard when you feel like you aren’t on top of your game. Social media makes it look like I am surrounded by people that are literally conquering mountains. (You know who you are.)

So I went in the sauna. I fidgeted. I looked at my phone. I fought and wrestled with the stillness until I gave. I knew it needed to come. It always needs to come. When I finally closed my eyes and leaned into everything, there it was…Tears. Sweat…. Release. Every glorious moment of being in that space was exactly what I needed to momentarily let go my imperfections and move on. Every second I spent in there with the discomfort of sweating and crying and being present with my emotions was a direct deposit into my soul. Building that account to be stronger so I can face the tolls of life on the rocky road ahead.

Sometimes we find grace in the strangest places. Sometimes it comes from unexpected people. But the times I am most surprised by grace is when I have found it fumbling around in my everyday life…all by myself.

After the Storm...

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And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up,
I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.

After The Storm, by Mumford + Sons

* I have posted the lyrics to this song before. It’s one of my most favorite ballads of all times by one of my most favorite bands ever. I listened to this music during a very hard time for me and remember feeling like it was a life jacket that some threw me in a wild, stormy sea. It still brings me to my knees when I hear it.