I suppose I could have (more appropriately?) written about Spring and the rites and rituals of Spring observances, and the Equinox, and all of that on the very day… would have been Monday.
I didn’t do that. I did make it to the coast early enough in the day to get some decent photographs, rest, meditate, and watch the tide come and go. It was high tide when I arrived, at midday. My room wasn’t yet ready, but soon would be, so I enjoyed a short walk along the tide-narrowed beach, and made a quick trip to the grocery store for easy-to-prepare “real food” items.
Why grocery shop? So practical. It was simply that I did not go with the intention of dining out for every meal; that gets expensive pretty quickly, and I went on this coastal getaway planning to also do a bit of a “reset” with regard to foods and meals and my relationship with with those practices. I had in mind “healthy calories”, portion control, and necessary fuel vs consumption-beyond-satiation. I wanted to be easily able to grab a quick meal in my hotel room without needing to cook or do a ton of preparation, and without having to fall back on heavily processed foods – and still eat well. Salads were a big win for my intention. Hard-boiled eggs. Roasted (unsalted) nuts. Blueberries. Goat cheese. All of which could become part of a salad, or eaten by measure on their own. The most expensive ingredient? No surprise; the salad dressing. I shopped with great care for a dressing that was very basic, made from healthy ingredients I’d actually want to ingest, no HFC – no sugar at all if I could find one without it – I was looking for a basic vinaigrette that didn’t have sugar or preservatives in it. Simple. Well… not ideally simple; I had to check 3 different locations in the grocery store before I found what I was looking for hidden away in the “keto” section. Still… it made the 3 days of solitude less costly, and also less… “people-y”, since I did not have to go out for a meal unless I actually chose to. This also forced me to think about meals very differently, in general; if I went out, why, and where would I go to eat something truly worth going out for?
There isn’t much to share about the trip to the coast; I spent most of it in my own head, whether I was in the room, or down on the beach walking and taking pictures. It was time well-spent, and I got a lot of much-needed rest.
The tide was quite low when I departed from the coast, eagerly heading home. The rain was falling steadily by then, and my final walk on the beach was a short one. 3 days away. I had watched the tide come and go several times. I had listened to the rain fall over hours and days, intermittently.
It’s lovely to return home to home & hearth, and my Traveling Partner. I do miss him when I’m away – and it seems we both benefit from having that opportunity to miss each other now and then. I know I need the solo time once in awhile, for me, it just surprises me how much that also seems to support good love and our relationship with each other. I reliably come home happy to be home and eager to be in my partner’s embrace once more.
So… Spring, eh? It’s not what I expected. lol I returned home thinking “spring”, but found that winter hasn’t yet truly departed. lol Yesterday, a quick trip to the store turned snowy.
With Easter on the way, the stores are loaded up with colorful sweets of the bunny and egg variety. Gets weirder every year. This year, I spotted “Hot Tamales” peeps. I don’t know why those need to exist, but there they were. 0_o
Returning home also let me return to projects in progress, like learning to make “shower steamers” (I’m definitely not done learning all I can to do the thing really well). I smile when I think about the progress (and steamers) I’ve made…
I sit here now, in my comfortable studio, surrounded by the trappings of a life well-lived, and I am content with life as it is. Funny place to be, for me. No yearning. No restlessness. No dissatisfaction. No particular frustration or feeling of being “held back” by circumstances. Just me, this room, the sound of rain falling, and the quiet sounds of the household around me and my partner in another room – and every detail is quite lovely exactly as it is. I smile and sip my coffee. It could all go sideways unexpectedly at any moment… but… it could also simply persist for some unmeasured time. It’s nice when that’s the case. I roll with it when it isn’t; non-permanence being what it is in life, it mostly doesn’t matter whether the next minute to unfold comes with joys or hardships – it’ll pass. The moment that follows may be quite different. That one will also pass. Life continues. I make choices. I practice being the woman I most want to be. Progress is sometimes (often) slow – but there is progress. It’s enough.
…”Move along”, “nothing to see here”… it’s time to begin again. 😉
Evening Light 