Hot town, summer in the city. Sirens scream from somewhere over the hill. Mustard grass blooms in profusion, swaying gracefully in the offshore wind. The breakers crash two hundred feet below me as I sit in the car on the edge of the ocean. On the landward side, adolescent palm trees dip their frayed fronds, their motion singing softly as their sharp fingers lift again.
A cooling breeze caresses my neck. Perfect. Hot sun, cooling breeze. Garden of Eden weather.
Our day has gone from a Covid booster, to ordering a second pair of glasses, to visiting the cemetery to put flowers on my dad’s grave, and those of my aunt and uncle. Then Mom, bless her heart, lay down on the bed and commenced snoring, so I took my leave.
There is something so healing and restorative about the sound of the surf. I sat along this coast many times in my first twenty-four years of life, soothed by the same sounds, comforted by the same breezes. The same, but different. The same surf, but not really. The same me, but not as I was then. Some change is subtle, other change is sudden.
Only God remains the same. Only God never changes. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. There is something poignant about being here helping my 98-year-old mother, when my cousin’s son’s wife has just given birth to a baby girl. As one nears the jumping-off place, another life has just begun.
It’s a mystery. A beautiful, moving mystery. Carpe diem.
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