Survivorship and the Beach
Sunday 6/14/15
It was our wedding anniversary trip, and Ken and I were wrapping up our weekend at Cannon Beach. We had been planning this trip for a year, and talking about it for about 6 weeks, starting conversations with “When we go on our trip, we should…”. And I for one have been thinking about it pretty obsessively for about the last 10 days or so
It’s been such a long time since I’ve been here – maybe since 7th grade. I LOVE the beach, and I think everyone I know gets dreamy eyed when you mention Cannon Beach, Oregon, in particular. I know I do.
We went for our walk on the beach the last night at low tide. I am disappointed to report that it doesn’t smell the same as I remember from my youth. I suppose it’s because of my sinus issues. Bleah. Wisdom is lovely, but getting older sort of bites in a lot of ways. My sense of smell is off, so of course is my sense of taste, so food is not the experience it once was, with the occasional notable exception, such as our dinner the first night, simple fish and chips at the Driftwood, but oh, my! I don’t know what magic their chef works, but that fish positively melts on your tongue. But I digress…
Not surprisingly, after a full day I was tired and quite ready to leave LONG before Ken was finished taking pictures. Let’s get one thing straight right now – that man is never actually “finished” with taking pictures. But that’s part of who he is, and I love him, so what can I do.
The next morning, our last morning at the beach on this trip, we got up EARLY to walk down to the beach again for the lower low tide, so we could get closer to Haystack Rock, and I could find more shells washed up on the beach to collect for our daughter. When we went to bed the night before, I think I secretly hoped that Ken would change his mind about getting up at O’Dark-thirty. I mean, he has enough photos, right? (See paragraph above. Ha!) And I can get shells for the kid in a souvenir shop that will be perfect, intact, and CLEAN.
The alarm didn’t go off as planned, but as there are sky-lights in the ceiling of our little cabin, we’ve been waking up by 4:30 or 5:00am every day anyway. So at 5:26, our eyes popped open, legs stuffed into pants, feet into shoes, and we were off without even brushing our teeth.
Totally. Worth it.
Loads of shells for the kiddo (not all survived the journey), loads MORE photos, another 2 miles or more walking on the beach, and I had my FitBit light show soon after breakfast (10,000 steps, and before 10:00am).
But the real news, the really BIG deal for me. Walking on the beach, with the wind and the surf and the sand, I. Felt. Amazing. I was walking along, at a pretty fast pace, feeling quite a lot like my old self that morning. So good I could almost run in my joy. Better than I have since I began this friggin’ “Cancer Journey.” One year ago, I couldn’t walk 8 blocks without needing a break, without feeling literally as old as dirt, feeling so tired I wanted to cry. And here I was, on the beach, feeling young and LOVING life.
We have officially hit a milestone.