If I could be anywhere right now

I'm sitting in my very cluttered office listening to a FolkAlley livestream. I know I am wasting time, boy do I know.... but the listening is causing me to slooooowwww down for a moment and just enjoy.
I don't do enough of that.
Heck - with 3 small children I never really sloooooowww down; I just carve out time by putting something else on hold.

In my slow-down moment I had an "if I could be anywhere right now" thought. I think it was a self asking self a question and really the answer is always the same:

I'd be sailing or looking out on the Pacific Ocean.

Oh man; I can almost taste the salty tang, feel the wind and hear my heart better.

It makes me want to listen to something like Cool Change (Little River Band), Sailing (Christopher Cross) or The Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot).

I grew up next to the Ocean. Not right on top of it, but about a mile away. Most of my coast friends moved after college and my family re-located inland in the mid-90's. Suddenly all the easy ways to visit were gone and each year of marriage has moved me farther and farther away from the ocean until I've landed about smack dab in the middle of the US. I don't want to offend, but it ain't pretty!

The correct term on the Pacific Northwest is "the coast" - not "the beach". A BEACH is the Keys or Jamaica. It's body surfing in warm water. It's a place you bring a picnic and suntan lotion and plan to hang-out for the day just soaking it up. The COAST is wind, sand-dunes, frothy surf, glorious sunsets, and massive logs rolled in from some storm. It's visits full of dashing in and out of the c-c-c-coooold waters. Surfers on the coast are a whole different breed who come equipped with full-body wetsuits, long-boards and guts enough to brave the elements (including sharks).

I spent a lot of years walking the coast line and I miss it. I don't mean the "golly gee that'd be fun to go back there sometime" kind of "miss it". I mean an ache in my soul. Truth be told sometimes I even cry when I think about how much I long for it. The coast and I have a history. I've worked out some my greatest tears and best ideas walking her shoreline and she has embraced me in my loneliness and my joy.

Vivid memories of growing up near the water are easy to recollect; family walks in the mist, my Great Dane, Jylan, chasing down Agate Beach after Mr. black trench-coat man, incredible float & shell finds, parties I shouldn't have been at and ones I wish could have gone on forever. Moments which indelibly marked me such as the bonfire when the guy jumped out of the tree into the bushes and the twig went directly into his hiney - still makes me wince, midnight dock crab-boils or the deep-sea fishing trip with Scott and dad where I caught the most fish.

I was made for the water. I've loved it from the time I was about 9 months old and took to the swimming pool like a tadpole. Comfort always comes in the form of a hot bath with a good book and no interruptions from children. I even labored in water for 14 hours with my firstborn; staring at a painted water scene in Holland - the water just kept going on and on in that picture and it was both the water I was in and looking at (intensely) that helped get through that drug-free.

I want to move back to the ocean and I still haven't figured out why I don't. Since I am married that kind of decision would have to be 3 -way...God, me and Scott. Don't get me wrong; the coast is not an easy place to live. Good paying jobs are tough to come by, house prices are out-of-control, and the spiritual atmosphere is congested with tons of new-age wacko's.

Still... it is near the ocean that I feel the smallest and the largest. Looking out onto the horizon, hearing the surf crashing and gazing on the brilliant colors of a sunset is something powerful. It is an awe-filled moment of worship where I recognize with great clarity the grandeur of God. It's one of the best places to be.