I can breathe...

The stars were aligned so that I could take the boys to the beach yesterday.  It was hot and the water was warm and, as is always the case in Galveston, brown.  But the wind was blowing.  You could see the faint outline of the moon.  There were flocks of pelicans flying in fluid formation. I tried to get the boys to participate in my wonder.

David:  (frank sympathy) Only grown ups are interested in that stuff.

The boys were more impressed with the profusion of hermit crabs.  We found at least twenty.  Some lived up to their names, but others were more free-thinking and came menacing out of their shells with arms flailing and pincers snapping and I had to scream and fling them back into the water.

I had a good book with me - a page-turner - but found myself needing rest more than distraction.  I sat at the edge of the water for a long, long time and let the wind sweep across my face and the water wash up and down my legs and picked tiny, perfect shells out of the sand and balanced them on my knees.

Chris has had a looming appointment this week - his first chest scan in six months.  I've tried not to actively think and worry about it, but it's been pressing on me, literally, like iron bands squeezing my lungs so that I just can't take in enough air.  But I can breathe at the ocean.  There's something about the bigness of it that soothes me.  It's hard to understand the amount of water I can see, and what I see is just the outer edge, the fringe of the Atlantic Ocean.  It makes me feel, deep in my bones, that there is a God in the world and that the part of my story I see right now is just a fragment of a much, much larger tale.

We saw the doctor today.  Chris' scan was clear.  Deep, cleansing breath of thanks and relief.