Oct 05 2008
Taking Time to Reflect
An essential part of my busy life is taking time to look around me, take a deep breath and see what’s going on in the world. Of course I can do this any day, all I have to do is become aware of myself and my surroundings and let my mind run free. But every once in awhile I need something just a little bigger than that.
I found the bigger world view for myself this weekend when my husband and I drove down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We go there once or twice a year to visit my in-laws. The trip, as a whole, is more about visiting family than finding vacation solitude, but we always manage to find an hour or two to beach comb and walk along the ocean.
I have fallen in love with Coquina Beach, which is a stretch of beach that comes just a few miles miles before Cape Hatteras. The beach front is wide. The dunes are some of the most magnificent in the whole Outer Banks. The ocean tide here seems a little more gentle than at most other parts of the shore line.
We spent nearly two hours walking this lovely stretch of sand. (Hooray for my exercise goals!) This late in the season there were few swimmers, quite a few fishermen and a good many horseback riders. The pace was calm, much like the ocean waves, the air was coolish warm, and the sun still felt good on my skin.
Any time I get too full of myself, I like to find myself at the ocean. It is here that I realize just how insignificant I am in the overall scheme of things. Anything that seemed serious and important last week suddenly became minute as I looked out over the horizon. I was more than outnumbered by the pelicans, seagulls, terns, and assorted other sea fowl. Every creature that surrounded me was living its life with a purpose and a goal and not seeming to worry too much about the future.
I am back to my “real” world now. And so, I will begin again to deal with what matters to me. Maybe, for a short while at least, my perspective will be in line with reality. I have again found the calm I so often need to recapture. For me, there is no place like the ocean for finding my inner peace.
Where do you seek (and find) a sense of peace?
