We have arrived amid our boxes of cargo through the threat of hurricane to arrive at our new island residence; bruised and broken nailed we are home. It seems a dream realized is to wash away all previous dreams of existence to be a new creation in a land of our choosing is at once surreal and divine, we are home. To be free of old constraints, to be liberated to walk a sandy beach strewn with shells of all denominations and sizes is to be reborn, we are home. We wonder at the enormous palm fronds as they rattle in the breezes blown in across the warm sands swept by the Gulf of Mexico endlessly and we are home.

Once upon a time I was a child born in the Commonwealth of Virginia where salty waters washed the coastal peninsulas known to the local residents as the Tidewater area. I believed all places were as magical as waking up and walking the sands to see what treasures were left by unseen salty muses. I believed then as I still do that those wild places unleashed into commerce and society our magical and so should be revered, and respected. To be restored to what I most loved as a child is humbling, we are home.

We stumbled upon this island oasis casually and without regard to how it would form all our future dreams of our life as we hoped for…Humans are taught to aspire for more and more when the more we have to manage, maintain, protect is a cage; an attractive cage but a cage all the same. Hansel and Greta should have been wary of the confection cottage and that is a lesson we should all remember, the fly caught in the syrupy sweet vice of the Venus Fly Trap plant will suffer the consequences of an easy meal. Moving to an island in the Gulf of Mexico was challenging in that we had to remember what was essential to our daily lives. We gave away entire rooms of furniture that were so essential to our former lives that seemed redundant once we considered a different type of life. We have less stuff and so more time for living, we are home.

What shall we do today? Walk the beach and gather seashells? Bicycle to the grocery store and post office to collect our mail? Rise for sunrises and time our day around the sunset? Swim in the ocean? These activities are all possible; we no longer have to daydream, because we are home.

Tales from the Sea