Serendipity

People here just call it the GTM, for obvious reasons. Imagine if I'd titled my blog post after the reserve...people would think one of my kids had gotten hold of the keyboard.

 I found my stretching place last Sunday. I know, it sounds like a yoga mat or a fence where you'd throw your leg up over your head and oh so casually work out your kinks before running a few miles. Provided that one can do one of those over your head leg stretches. And also provided that one can breeze through a few miles. Obviously I can do both. Kind of. Just not very well. Ahem.

Anyway, it's not that kind of stretch. When I'm happy...no,wait... more than  happy. Chips and salsa make me happy and that magic happens every day week in my house.  When I'm truly, completely, incandescently alive with the good things in life...love, hope, peace, joy, gratitude...I am wont to say that "My soul just stretched out its kinks". And sometimes if I'm very fortunate, I find a place where soul stretching is really easy.

And I found one here through some glorious combination of luck and alertness, which is what we normally call "serendipity". 

Here's how it happened. I was having a bad weekend (yes, sometimes life's problems have the nerve to follow you around) and I asked Tim if we could go for a drive. That's how we fell in love, Tim and I...we would drive around the glorious North Carolina countryside together with a bag of curly fries and a homemade CD of our favorite songs and talk, or sing (very quietly, in my case), or just be together in silence. This is back when gas was barely over a dollar a gallon, Napster was still legal, and unicorns and dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. Ah, the good old days.

Where was I? Yes, bad weekend, emergency measures needed...so we went for a drive. And first we drove through Ponte Vedra Beach, which is where the big mansions on the beach are, and that was nice. I enjoy viewing excess as much as any red blooded American female.

This is from a different day, but this is your typical beachfront cottage in Ponte Vedra Beach. You know, just your basic.

And then we accidentally happened upon the aforementioned nature preserve and my mind was blown and I might have said with great seriousness that we needed to come back here or I would shrivel up into a heap of bitter tears and mournful howls. So we went back, camera and cute children in tow.

And as always happens when you find your place, a place where your soul is going to kick back, relax, and drink some wine, you know it instantly, and it's like flipping a light switch. One minute you're in a dark place for myriad reasons and then all of sudden, it's light and you can see everything really clearly. And you are sipping spiritual pinot noir (Far Niente or Silver Oak, if you want some specifics).

Taking the boardwalk over the dunes to the beach

I started to feel like this was going to be good.

And it was good. Great, in fact.

 No houses, no parking lots, no people, just wind and waves and sand and us. The wind was whipping against us furiously, and the surf was wild and it was enough to make the most mired down soul feel like running and jumping and spinning in dizzy circles. Addie, never a mired down soul to begin with, was overjoyed. She found a feather.

 

Graydon found ...a beach. His greatest joy in life is walking right along the edge of the high water mark and just...walking. As far and as fast as he can go. I think he's still thrilled that he can go whichever direction he chooses whenever he wants.

 

 It's impossible to say for sure, but I think they liked it too.

 Bruce Springsteen once sang, "The poets down here don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be". And I think he was referring to the times when words aren't enough for all the worst reasons...danger, futility, sterility...but there are also times when the poets are silent for the best reasons...reverence, immensity, and awe.

Fortunately for my blog, I am no poet, though I did find a place where I can stand back and let it all be. And fortunately for my soul, I'll go back as much as I can before we leave.

Pelicans at sunset