Finding the way home

I went to the ocean this weekend. It was Rx, rather than R&R. Sometimes, I need the sea to wash me clean.

Moist, salt wind filled my lungs, infused my blood, my brain. Cold water splashed up my legs, saying: Remember. When you are alive and in love with being alive, doubts and burdens drift away with the breeze.

I became light enough to fly wingtip-to-wingtip with a pelican, to dance on the lip of eternity.

But my feet were grounded, toes digging into wet sand and feeling its shift, constant movement, tide in, tide out, the sea's breath.

So much life is happening right here. On these rocks. In this ebb and flow. These two tidal boulders remind me of mammals, of whale or walrus backs.

*

Would they take me on a journey?

Carry me below and teach me how to breathe again?

*

Many creatures live here, plant and animal scrunched on rock that gets pounded, submerged, dried out. It's a harsh environment. But it's home.

This chiton is anchored so tight to this rock, I wasn't sure it was alive, at first.

These tiny mollusks, also called sea cradles, have mouths and teeth to eat algae. They have a nervous system resembling a ladder and use a muscular foot, similar to limpets, to hold on. But here's the thing that blows me away. Chitons, although they seem rooted to the rock, can move, and they can find their way home again.

Another lesson from the sea.