November 7, 2010

Part two of a seven-day meditation, brought to you by the Pacific Ocean, and about owning myself as vast body of water . . .

So here we are, day two, installment two.  It’s November 7, 2010.  We’ve gained an hour of darkness, an extra hour for contemplation or sleep or to enjoy glow in the dark things stuck on our ceilings.

The writing at the end of this post came from a brainstormed list of what being at the seashore brought to mind and choosing some things off of the list to free write about.  By way of explanation or prelude, I thought I’d also offer a little backstory, what makes up the knotted twisty roots of the few lines I wrote.

Amongst other things in the brainstorming, I recalled beach vacations with my family to Marco Island and how sometimes we would get a package of baloney, a bag of white buns, and a small jar of mayo and have the best beach sandwiches ever.  These days, I love good, whole-grained foods, heavy on the vegetables and the freshness.  But I cannot tell a lie:  thinking about those baloney sandwiches still makes my mouth water.  I guess you can take the girl out of the baloney, but you can’t take the baloney out of the girl.  Or something like that.  Maybe something that doesn’t sound quite so sketchy.

Speaking of sketchy, I also thought about my college graduation trip to Daytona, piling into my ‘95 Buick Skylark with Ann and Amy and Sephora and driving to Florida for I don’t remember how many days of beer-drinking, pool and beachside sitting tomfoolery.  At the time, I had a new boyfriend, with whom I was definitely smitten.  He had not come on the trip, and I remember talking to him on the hotel room phone, whispering sweet nothings, getting made fun of (and rightly so) for how hard it was to end our conversation, and feeling how much we were in love, or at least deep smit.

I also remember waking up in our hotel room one morning and finding an enormous inflatable whale in the bathtub, but that’s a different story.

What happened with the boyfriend is that we had a great time that summer, gazing into each other’s eyes and visiting each other in Dayton and Pittsburgh.  But then, as I recall, he got freaked out that I was leaving for Arizona that August to do a year of volunteer work, and he began to pull away and put up walls of the emotional variety, I suppose to protect himself.  This I found to be the first of numerous experiences I’ve had with men who have seemed to retreat from the fullness of my life.

What I’m coming to understand is that this trend might actually be more about these men retreating from the fullness of their own lives and all kinds of other things which likely fall into the category of “Not My Job.”  What this also might be about is me coming face to face with my own shadow side in relationships, but again, that’s an inflatable whale for another bathtub.

My hope, my deep desire and yearning, is to one day meet a man who believes so much in his own full life that being with me will be like peanut butter finding chocolate or wine finding chocolate or really almost anything delicious finding chocolate.  However it turns out, I get to be the chocolate.  And my point being that we will be two great tastes that go great together rather than one of us being a can of spam frowning resentfully at the other’s being pecan-crusted bacon.

Have I gotten off track?  Have I said too much?  Well, as Evita might sing, there’s nothing more I can think of to say to you.  Except for what comes below—just a few lines I wrote from the free write on my seashore musings.

Perhaps you might consider brainstorming your own ocean list and doing a little free writing and then sharing it here?  Do join me.  I’ve got an extra lounge chair and a sandwich you’re gonna love.

Where my seashore brainstorm led me:

I am most often not of the delicate variety.  I am more like the ocean.  I can seem still and calm like the coastal waters of the Mediterranean, but then I can roil up and swirl up and crash on the shore.  I am a lot of woman, a lot to handle, and I guess I like it that way.  Delicate is a moniker that feels inauthentic for me.  Just doesn’t fit.

I am vast like the ocean, like the sea, where my favorite times have been ones when I’ve been wide awake and taking it in and eating baloney sandwiches on white buns with mayonnaise and looking at tides coming in and out and rolling over my toes.

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.