It’s 4pm on a weekday and my calendar block reads: “Obligatory Beach”. I take a break from flowers and bike my rusty Burning Man beach cruiser down Rose Avenue to the ocean. Walking the vast sands of Santa Monica State Beach, I lay out my towel, strip off my jeans, and run into the crisp rolling waters wearing just a one-piece. It’s the salty air that seizes me first, then the goosebumps creeping up my skin. After I muster up the courage, I dive head first into a crashing wave and come up feeling reborn. The blurring of my vision brings a sweeping gloss of indigo hues throughout my periphery. I wipe my eyes and beam back at the sun. And that’s when I remember why I moved here.
People often ask me why I left the bustle of New York City to go back to California. The reasons are many - lifestyle, family, friends, warmer weather, fresher flowers - but in truth, a large part is because of the ocean.
I used to say, “I want to be able to not only look at the ocean, but to jump in it!”. This innate desire - this intuitive pull - immediately disqualified the un-swimmable polluted waters of the Hudson River, and the frigid 50 degree temps of San Francisco where I grew up. Hence, newlywed and ready for a change, my husband and I landed in the city of angels. Nestled on the border between Santa Monica and Venice, we now live a mile away from the beach. Tyler has taken up surfing, while I’ve committed to cold plunges.
I call it “ocean therapy”.
As a triple earth sign, on land I feel safe and grounded and steady. But my draw towards water has always felt like chasing a muse - manifested as a mirage of glittering blue and unknowable darkness. Rivers are my true love, and so is Lake Tahoe, but what continues to captivate me most is the mystery of the ocean. I love the fact that we as humans cannot seem to conquer her depths. That ships sink and are never to be found again. The ocean demands humility. Like a mystical sea serpent, she swallows us whole.
The properties of water act counterintuitively and contradictory. Tumultuous currents dance with white caps suspended between a reflective surface of calm. White wash rolls into the riptides and sand shakes up into micro-storms that smooths into shoreline. The chaos brings me solace, a reminder that transformation exists amongst the tempests. On days when everything feels overwhelming, I look to the water to remind me that life is always in motion, in flux, in flow. That everything will pass. And nature need not be stable to be beautiful, or peaceful. The fluidity of water reminds me that we, too, can shape-shift. And that, over time, tides churn the rubble of abrupt change into sea glass.
For having moved coast-to-coast across the country six (!!) times now, I always seem to forget how long transitions take. To settle, to get acclimated, to resume a tangential normalcy. The first few months are a blur of novelty and disorientation - blindly relying on maps and reviews to find new coffeeshops, new workout classes, new restaurants … while simultaneously cultivating a new community, and navigating a new sense of being with a nascent semblance of belonging. I always feel a scramble to get some sort of a routine in place whilst still flailing around clumsily in foreign territory. Days expand and contract. It’s destabilizing but exhilarating - a time for exploration over exploitation, nesting and nourishing, excitement and resilience.
I look to the ocean for counsel, and I feel called towards her shores. Like the tides, I am reminded that our lives too ebb and flow. This chapter of transition will morph into a new story soon enough. As always, patience. I feel the challenge to stay courageous and steady amidst the forthcoming swell - where fear and danger coincides with surrender and acceptance. I think of surfing, when sometimes letting go is the only option when you’ve been pummeled by a wave - but what’s on the other side is where the sirens sing - the sensation like no other: that of the rush and smoothness of gliding on silky surface tension, standing up on the same waveform that just brought you under. Strength and vulnerability exist above and below the same waters. The polarities of the ocean keep us present.
Back on land, the beach offers unexpected gifts. I’ve recently discovered that practicing breath work on the sand feels entirely different than when practicing on solid ground. Sitting criss-crossed with my sacrum molded into the shifting earth, I feel held and stable and planted. Deep inhales and exhales and rounds of breath of fire activate a strange power unbeknownst to me before. I can feel my womb space warming and sacral energy rising as I look towards the now setting sun. I’d be amiss to not mention the sublimity of those Santa Monica sunsets - when the sun rays cast gold shimmer across the sky.
It’s on these days that I look to the ocean and find within my own depths a sense of calmness and centeredness; solace and celebration. And on very lucky days, if I squint reallyyy hard, I can even see mermaids splashing in the sea.
