This week’s OOH LA LA! is: the way my body feels when I’m at the beach
When I am at the beach, my entire being exhales.
My shoulders drop, my breath moves easier, even my jaw releases its always-tight grip a bit. At the beach, my body feels relaxed and whole, not rushed, not overwhelmed, simply existing alongside the ever-moving ocean and the ever-moving sky with the other beach-goers, who have come to the shore, like me, to let their struggles slip away, if only for an afternoon.
It is always a wonder to me the way my body feels when I’m at the beach.
In just my swimsuit, I feel free. In my swimsuit at the beach, I somehow become less attuned to the intrusive thoughts about the way my body does or doesn’t meet any ideas about what a body should or shouldn’t be.
With nothing to cover the curves and creases, and my attention fixed on the warmth of soft sand on the soles of my feet and the sound of the ocean like a lullaby, going in and out and in and out, I forget all notions of my appearance.
Consumed by the pleasure of sun-kissed skin and salty tongue from sea-soaked hair blowing across my face in the wind, I do not worry about the softness of my belly or the roundness of my hips, for the sun has come to kiss me and the ocean is singing a soothing song that is fully-captivating my spirit!
Any body at the beach is a beach body by the very nature of the word itself, and also by the very nature of the beach, with its power to soften and soothe and delight. Swimming in the waves, I have nothing but adoration for my arms and legs and the strength I have to keep myself afloat in the heavy water.
The ease I feel in my body at the beach is an ease I yearn to carry with me back to my writing, my work, my daily routines.
”When despair for the world grows in me…I come into the peace of wild things,” wrote poet Wendell Berry. Wild things, like ocean waves and sparkling sand warmed from the sun, “do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.”
Among wild things, I remember my wildness. I remember I am not obligated to hold the weight of the world, that I am not confined to any ideas I nor anyone has about me, that I am free to rest and dream and be. “For a time, I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
XOXO,
LJ
Thanks for reading!!
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As always, I’d love to know about your OOH LA LA! somethings. Reply to this email or comment below and tell me about something wonderful you’ve experienced or noticed lately!