Come To The Beach With Me

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

I wish you could be here right now, on the beach with me. It’s mid-January and there is a slight, misting rain. The ocean is a shade greyer than the sky, and in the gap between the clouds and the water there is a small dash of sun. Dark orange, the color of the egg yolks from organic, free-range chickens. There was a farm near where I grew up that sold eggs like that on the side of a sleepy, two-lane country road. Organic, free-range, non-GMO, brown and blue spotted eggs. Perfect, without even trying to be.

There is nobody on the beach but me. The rain has people scuttling indoors hoisting jackets overhead to ward off the damp and chill. I take my shoes off first, then peel off my socks one at a time. My feet look pale and ghostly against the dark, wet sand. My toenails are beaten and raw from all the running I’ve been doing. “What are you running from?” a friend of mine always jokes. I’m not running away from anything, anymore. Rather, I’m running toward a life that is quietly lovely. Beautiful, without trying to be.

A few nights ago, I painted my toenails robins egg blue in an attempt to cover up the bruising. It doesn’t hurt to lose a toenail, not like I thought it would. They just fall right off, another, new toenail already growing beneath. Sort of like losing a baby tooth, or discarding an…