I stumbled upon a book that came highly recommended by a family friend. This book was called “Gift from the Sea”. Now, being a blogger, you would think I’m good with words..well not always.
This book put into words how I feel about Cape Cod. I have felt, for years, a warmth, an inner peace every time I step foot in my neighborhood on The Cape. It always seemed weird because I couldn’t justify it. I would get upset leaving and tell myself that ‘I’m being silly’ because I was just leaving a beach, its just a beach. But it is more than a beach. It is my special place where I grew up and made forever memories. Forever memories of walking the streets aimlessly, riding my bike in endless circles for enjoyment. Forever memories of being barefoot and needing nothing but my bathing suit. Forever memories of the best of times with friends and family.
“One learns first of all in beach living the art of shedding, how little one can get along with, not how much.”
I read this sentence and smiled. I smiled because it seemed to all come together at that very instant of reading that one simple sentence of a book. And so it became clear. I love this beach, this neighborhood in cape cod because it reminds me just how simple life can be. How little we need to really live. How materialistic a world we live in and this place is my serenity. My peace. My Forever Happiness.
I feel this warmth inside not because it is ‘just a beach’, not because I long for a time so far in the past I can not dig it up. No. I feel this way because it’s my place of peace. The place that reminds me to just be myself and that is all I need. It is the place of forever memories, and forever memories to come.
“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach- waiting for a gift from the sea.” -Gift from the Sea
