beauty and the beach

so i actually should be writing an essay but my professors encourage free writes to stimulate your flow...so here i am blogging for inspiration, of all things.

i woke up cold this morning and can't seem to shake the chill. i had breakfast - shredded wheat and banana; and now waiting for the sun to burn off the morning fog so i can go outside and seek a bit of warmth del sol. i am sitting here wishing that i was on the north shore...i hear the honu [that's sea turtles for you mainlanders] calling my name. i belong on the beach. it is my true bliss.

it started when i was a child...those beach days when my parents would fill up the wicker picnic basket and throw it into the car trunk along with blankets, my pails, shovels, and assorted items. those were happy times. here is dad and mom looking ultimately cool on santa monica beach. i took this snap of them when i was about six years old.

as the years passed, i soon began to take the big blue bus out to the santa monica pier on my own. i was a wanderer then...always looking for a place of solitude. on the not so warm days i would seek solace in a dark theater, otherwise, weather permitting, i found my happiness sitting on the warm sand staring out into the sea. the sounds of the ocean lulled me into a peacefulness...my escape from the disturbances at home. i lived in a fantasy world those days on the beach...imagining myself in the middle of a beach party or gidget movie...where everyone sang, danced, and surfed their way to a happy ending.

when i got the keys to my first ride - a `69 mustang [i AM a california girl!] - there was not a beach that i had not combed between san pedro to ventura. i found hidden coves and nude beaches. i found the locations for those gidget and beach party movies that i grew up on. i even found my first love playing in the sand in playa del rey. yes, just like in the movies, this gidget found her moondoggie on the beach! i would spend entire days on the beach until the sun was lost beyond the sea's horizon. the beach was the backdrop to all of the adventures of my youth. this beach bunny eventually became part of a cluster of teens who thought life was about nothing but hanging out on the beach. no matter where our group started out that day, somehow all roads led us to the ocean.

the ocean is powerful...i both love and fear it's amazing strength. when my feet are immersed into the wet sand, and the water envelopes my legs, i feel like i am sinking, connecting to the earth. i am in a state of bliss.

in the more recent years, i have discovered other beaches beyond the familiarity of my southern california coast....more tropical...balmy breezes, warmer waters, different sand composition. it started when a friend had asked me to accompany her on a dive trip in the bahamas...my first experience with a turquoise sea and white sand. the water was crystal clear...it blew me away. i spent 7 out of 8 days just lying out, absorbing the beach, and one day with my friend on the dive boat. it was beach therapy, and my first actual holiday in adult life.

as beautiful as the caribbean is, it is hawai'i that i truly fell in love with. it is my true love...and it is not just the beauty of the islands...the lush greenness of the mountains, the red earth of the country, the bluest of skies, the clearest of water, the trade winds in my hair, the sun bronzing my skin, or the food that takes me to heaven...it is the people who inhabit it. it is their aloha spirit. the connection was so incredibly intense when i was at kukaniloko. i couldn't describe it but i knew i had been there on that very spot in another life while babies were being born. i felt a sense of ohana; i belonged there, so easily connected with the people of the islands. it was my home.

when i was a little girl, i used to dream that i was living on an island in the pacific, in a beach hut on stilts over a dolphin filled lagoon...and maybe i did in a previous life because it is here in the pacific that my spirit felt the sense of belonging. i can't explain it to you any other way than that. the first time that i was on o'ahu, i knew that i had been there before. when i returned, i realized that my spirit was connected to this place. i am a pacific island girl...i need to explore this further...perhaps tahiti...moorea...fiji...

so now you get why i am happiest when playing on the beach. i would be completely content if i spent the rest of my days wearing board shorts and slippahs. of course, i could wrap a pareo around me for those special occasions. aloha.