We are at the beach this week.
The beach.
I love everything about those two words. Their succinctness. The way its “ch” sound lingers after it leaves your lips. The images and feelings the words inspire.
One day I will write everyday from a room that looks out at a stretch of sand. Beside my desk will be a door to lounging deck chairs. I will take my cup of coffee and my book and read in between moments of staring at the great expanse of the Gulf, breaking only to go in the water–diving deeper in my consciousness.
That’s not a dream. That’s my horizon.
Speaking (writing?) of dreams, last night I endured a somewhat confusing dream twinged with fear and paranoia. I could go into detail, but I’d prefer to keep your attention. It had to do with high school and me negotiating between a rebel pack of kids and our school’s administration. (In between all this, there was a moment during the dream where I tried to use a hotel restroom, but all the stalls were either occupied or had women reading magazines in chairs beside the toilets.)
I woke up and walked out to the living room where the rest of my kids were eating their mini-sized boxes of variety cereal and my husband had brewed our first pot of coffee at the beach (this is a sacred moment for me–my two favorite things blending together–freshly brewed coffee and the beach). As I poured my coffee, a pilot on the television was talking about flying at night, “You can’t lose your horizon,” he said, “You’ll get vertigo and crash.”
Wildly enough, a Mountain Man pilot on The History Channel interpreted my dream for me.
I’ve lost my horizon. I’ve been negotiating between what I’m supposed to do and what the rebel in me wants to do for way too long and in far too many aspects of my life.
I must go–my children have moved from begging, “Can we go to the beach now?” to putting on their suits by themselves, even the 3 year old, and standing as-patient-as-a-kid-can-stand by the condo door with their beach toys and sunscreen.
I will put on my swimsuit, pack our beach bag with their towels, snacks, and my paperback copy of Cheryl Strayed’s Torch. And in between the water, and the reading, and the kids, I will make it my intention of the day to stare at the great expanse of the Gulf and remember my own horizon.
Before I go, tell me, have you ever lost your horizon? How did you find it again? Did you crash before getting it back?
Oh Josie, the beach. The family. The writing. It’s all so pointillist, isn’t it? Tiny details all side-by-each that somehow form a life?
Have a fabulous vacation, enjoy the sand, sun and water. The kids. The coffee. The spouse. And compost all that luscious fodder.
And, yes, I lose my horizon every day. Mostly it’s patience that brings it back. xo
pointillist–exactly!
if only i had patience–it is one of the many virtues i fall short on. i blame it on genetics.
Fire signs that we are, we need the water for balance, though what we tend to crave is what’s worse for us … like more fire.
A healer told me this. I was having stomach issues and he said, basically, you need to change your habits and eat more cold sandwiches and fruit and ice cream and ice water, but what I craved, and what kept making me sicker, were the hot meals and peppers and coffee. Once I took his advice and backed off the “heat” for a couple of weeks, I felt like a new person.
That said, man do I love hot food and peppers and coffee, even in summer.
Thank god I’m only an hour from the most beautiful beach…. though I don’t go as often as I should.
Have a great holiday, Josey.
Sorry — I drifted off track. (what a shock!) I meant this comment about cravings to show one of the many means by which I can get off track. Hell, I’m the person who was so devastated by a professor’s response to my work that I didn’t write for almost a year.
Sometimes it takes awhile to find the way back, to see our horizons again. But our personal horizons are always there…. waiting.
i was thinking about cravings on the way down here and how i rarely limit any of my “wants” if i want a book/magazine, i get it. if i want coffee, i get it. i have unbelievable fortunate place in life to fulfill these basic cravings, but, BUT what I’m wondering is how happy they really make me. and that maybe, if i actually afforded myself some discipline–tried to do without in all the areas i go overboard–maybe i could start to fine-tune my real desires vs. the topical impulse desires that are really just distractions.
this starts with fire food for me too–fried foods (fish, french fries), coffee, coffee, coffee, grilled red meat–all of it. i need to stop and rethink my choices from the most basic nutritional level and work my way up from my gut to the chakra on top of my head.
Oh, the beach. There are few other words that make me smile and put me at ease at once. We’ve just come from the beaches of Maine and I am doing my very best to cling to those peaceful, salt-tinged days, Josey. (I can’t even bear to let my husband vacuum out the sand from the car!) Those ocean days fill me up and I treasure them. I know you will find your horizon again with your seaside view. Hugs.
i saw your name on here and had a pang that i didn’t have your new book. what better place to read a mermaid tale than the beach. (little gale gumbo would have been perfect too if i hadn’t already read it.)
I’ve lost my horizon, many times, and I’m sure I will again. But sometimes, I’ve been looking at the wrong place all along . . .
i know that “looking in the wrong place” feeling. i don’t even think i’ve been looking. in fact, i forgot to even have one for awhile now. i was so settled on staring at my past that i forgot our metaphorical sun rises as often as it sets.
“I could go into detail, but I’d prefer to keep your attention.” I will steal this line and use it in conversation this week!
I have lost my horizon, and it was less a dramatic crash than a slow, unbearable, depressing period of blankness. Which I guess is like a crash after all.
it’s the worst kind of crash. you don’t know it’s happening at first so you can’t get your own damn self out of the way before its too late.
I always wonder how the writer’s view changes her writing. In my imagination, penthouse apartments offer broader vistas. Once, I slept in a room in a big house on the top of a hill with a fabulous view and it made me feel like a different person– with a different perspective. Then I wonder if rich people are the only ones who can afford omniscience. But I digress– love your thoughts about the horizon. They made me think.
Isn’t it amazing that a physical change of view could have such an effect on viewpoint. I used to write from my dark little bedroom in Vegas, then discovered the library, the cafe, the park. Now I carry my notebook everywhere, and try to use the surroundings as stimuli. Sometimes it works.
I’ve lost my horizon many, many times. Sometimes I crash, sometimes I regain my perspective in time.
i remember laying on the hardwood of my bedroom floor in high school, all sprawled out with gigantic headphone wrapped across the top of my head listening to Beastie Boys and writing for hours in my journal.
it’s still one of my most favorite writing environments that i can remember.
i think.
i may just be nostalgic right now.
i want a house on top of a hill with a fabulous view of the sun rising and setting. right now, our house sits in a valley sort of, making me have to walk to the top of our neighborhood to get a full view of the sun as it goes down. our sunsets are these brilliant oranges that turn to blood orange and then pinks and purples and blues.
i keep thinking of a story that starts with the line, “Who knew the end of the world would be so beautiful.”
Hi Joesphine, Lisa Golden suggested I introduce myself to you so here I am. I have lost my horizon many times in life. I think when you have little children it’s just really, really hard to focus on much of anything else. Btw, as a memoir writer I was touched by your post Through the Looking Glass. I hope you have a wonderful day at the beach.
hi susan, i’m glad lisa sent you my way–awww, memoir writer (have you been to teri’s blog? you should–you can find a link to it on here: Carter Library)
yesterday, my husband took the kids back to the condo and let me have playtime by myself at the beach. just me and a chair and my dogeared paperback. i got in the water and thought, “i don’t have to think of anything right now. just me. floating. it was so freeing i got a little scared. and then i thought–i’m never going back. of course, then i got really hungry and went back anyway.)
The horizon changes, you know, whenever you move about. When you are finally in a place where it’s what you need to see, you’ll capture that horizon just fine.