The Call of the Sea

Having grown up in the Midwest - about as far from the ocean as you can get - beach vacations didn't really exist for me. I went once with my parents but really have no actual memories of it. My first real beach vacation came as a sophomore in college on Spring Break, where becoming one with the ocean really was never on the itinerary. So for most of my life, the draw that people feel to the ocean was a mystery to me. Sure I enjoyed going and drinking my rum drink in the sand but that was all that was there. But then I met, fell in love with and married a man with salt water in his veins and over this past decade, especially after this vacation with the kids, I am finally beginning to understand the pull....

It is the awe, excitement, fear, and wonder in my children's eyes as they watch the waves crash on the shore. And it is the ever changing mixture of those emotions from moment to moment depending on how high the tide is and where they are. It is the sandcastles to be built and the fresh canvass each day to start anew. It is the endless search for buried treasure.

It is the eternal optimism of a crazy dog thinking that she could ever catch a sandpiper.

It is the continual roar of the ocean that drowns everything out, including your own thoughts, and forces you to actually think about nothing.

It is the strange calm that only comes over my husband when he stands on those shores.

Now, honestly, I think I will always find my true peace standing in the middle of the wide open plains of the Midwest but pretty soon I think the ocean might rank a close second.