Today one of your closest friends turns 18. Her mom wrote some beautiful words to express her feelings on this occasion. She spoke about drawing a line in the sand and crossing over it, and the image of the sand has been playing out all night in my head.
Shifting sand, line in the sand, sands in an hour glass, write it in sand; there are many sand metaphors that speak about the passage of time and its impermanence. While the speed at which time is passing is alarming and is what started this journal, tonight, I cannot help but feel comfort in the image of sand.
No natural thing comforts me more than the ocean. I adore everything about the sea and I love all the ways that it has been a fixture in my life. From my grandmother’s house on the ocean, all the nautical décor in my home growing up from my Navy family, or my brother’s pirate band, the ocean surrounds me even when I am solidly on land. For me sand is just as much a part of the ocean as the water.
This past year I wrote a play which took place on an island. There were themes of loss, of growing up, and of the ocean.
“It is time to tell you knew the truth about your mother. The land, it is what gives you your roots, it will always tether you to something. The land people are solid and sturdy. Now some people don’t like to be tethered, they want to be free to float and drift. Those are the sea people. They are able to move with the tides and they are comfortable knowing that sometimes they will drift a long time before they find what they are looking for because they understand that the world is a circle, and no matter how far you go, eventually, you will always come back, right where you started. “
My play was a love letter to a lot of people, places and things, but I didn’t realize then how much it was also going to advise me. “No matter how far you go, eventually, you will always come back, right where you started.”
To today’s 18 year old, and to my soon to be 18 year old, I can’t wait to see where the tide will take you.
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