Seeking Peace

The wave rushes onto the sand teasing and tickling  my feet as it washes over them as I walk.  Step after step, I am walking life's challenges away.  I am setting each free to be taken to sea on the waves.  I walk.  I wait for the power of the ocean to work its magic, scouring  the negativity from my heart and leaving my soul refreshed with new perspective.

My gaze falls to the sun hitting just so on the ocean as it peaks through the clouds on the eastern horizon.  The beach is empty this morning outside a few fishermen, the gulls, and three generations of my family.  My dad walks on the sand lost in his own thoughts.  The child prancing across the sand and flirting with the waves  is mesmerized by the ocean itself and the treasures that it delivers to her feet.  And me, the mother, the daughter, the woman, waiting for  peace to rush in on the tide.  For each, the beach offers a welcome introduction to the new day. 

I ponder the sand and the waves as I walk.  Often I find peace along the shore, the waves illustrating so well the greatness of the world at large in ways that very little else can.  Today I am lost in a world that lies just beyond salty fingers. 

Ahead footprints are left by my daughter as she moves; footprints that vanish nearly as quickly as they  are formed.  It is the temporary state of life.  The speed and ease at which life can change.  The evidence of this life meeting and touching the beach lasts but only a moment before it is gone - leaving nothing but sand in its place. 

I ponder my life in general.  Drawing a line in the sand, I consider the boundaries that are established.  Like the sand and the water with the footprints, I know that the line can disappear.  The water will slowly wash the sand clean leaving nothing in its wake.  No line in the sand.  No boundaries.