Beautiful Waves

I've let the fact that my little piece of autobiographical fiction is now free for any scary person on the scary internets to peruse, judge, and dislike sink in for just about an hour and a half.

I think I'm okay.

I'm ready to say something new now.

I'd like to explain the title of this blog.

This summer, I was spent a weekend with mom's family camping on the Oregon coast, which, as anyone whose ever been on the Oregon coast knows, means camping with salty air and the ocean as soundtrack. Nobody really "plays" in the Pacific ocean anywhere further north than San Francisco.

The only thing that makes the Oregon coast worth visiting is the view. The place is beautiful. You can sit on the beach and just listen and watch the seagulls. Once there was a group of whales breaching just beyond the breakers and we passed around binoculars.

Last summer was especially... disruptive to the status quo of my life. I broke up with my girlfriend of two years, who I had given a ring. I spent nearly two months of the summer abroad, and alone, trying to be useful. And, my sophomore year of college was just about to start.

I was sitting on the beach thinking about how much had changed since the last year when I'd camped here with my family. My Dad has a saying, "in five years, a lot of things change, but in ten years, everything changes." I was pondering that phrase. Really, dad? Everything.

I sat there, gazing out into the fog, trying to find the exact point where the ocean and the sky blended together, and a thought came to me. The ocean is constant. The ocean doesn't change. It's probably the most constant thing on the planet. Continents shift. Layers of the sky can be destroyed. People, animals, and plants are all in constant cycles of birth, life, and death. The ocean is the only thing that hasn't changed throughout all that.

Tides have always come in, and they have always gone back out. Then I realized that the most constant thing about the ocean was it's change. It's a bored cliche, but the only constant is change. For the ocean, this change takes the form of waves.

Each wave is different, unlike any other. Some of them come rushing at the coastline, pounding the sand with full force, sending water particles flying into the air. Some waves lap against shore, caressing the wet sand like you'd pet a butterfly. Every wave is a unique interaction between water molecules and land, propelled by a force far beyond anyone's control.

You already know where I'm going with this. Each wave is like each moment in life. Every moment comes and goes, followed by another. There's nothing we can do to keep the next moment from coming, and we can't keep a moment past its time any better than we could keep a wave from returning to the ocean.

The temporary aspect of the wave is part of what makes it so beautiful.

I have been guilty of trying to keep waves on the shore far past their time. I have been guilty of this many times. Often with little waves with small consequences, but sometime, especially recently, with a big wave. I'm tired of doing that.

I am trying to live by a new philosophy. One where I recognize a beautiful wave, revel in the temporal wonder of the moment, and then allow the moment to dissolve and slip into the past. I'm not going to kill myself trying to keep old waves on the shore, and I'm not going to mourn their passing.

My life is full of beautiful waves, and my goal is to see them for what they truly are, without fear, and let them wash over and through me.