LIVING IN A MOMENT

On a frigid Virginia morning, standing still, in a moment, I felt the future, present and the past colliding, both joy and pain mixing in my tears as the cold air filled my lungs and I found peace in the crunch of icy snow underneath my boots. 

The bare trees reached to the sky as if begging for spring to return and clothe them in new leaves.  I tilted my head back and closed my eyes breathing in the cleansing air and thanked God for the season.

And at the same time of year, less than two years ago, I was walking along in wet sand on the Coronado shore's edge, listening to the rhythmic crash of waves as the cold salt water raced across the top of my bare feet.  Then, the ocean pulled them back and my feet sunk into the sand with the pull of the tide.

I closed my eyes, inhaled the salty sea air and heard a seagull's cry overhead with another resounding crash of waves behind me.

As I embrace 2018, I will remember both the cleansing of winter and the eternal song of the ocean.