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Stalking Wonder: Waves for Christmas

My mother recently moved from California to Seattle. All her kids and grandkids live here now, it only makes sense. What is the point of being so far away?

What’s the point of being in California—besides the great weather and the year-round bountiful farmers’ markets? She misses both of those things. The other thing she misses are the waves.

Seattle is a city surrounded by water, but it’s not the ocean. While the water of the Puget Sound is salty, and it laps at beaches just off the city, it’s not a proper ocean with crashing waves and frothing surf. It just isn’t.

That’s the sort of ocean my mother loves and has always chosen to live near. Given a choice, she will park herself next to crashing waves and hope never to leave. Here in Seattle she can see water from her house, but it’s not the right kind of water. It’s not the kind of water that makes big waves.

So for Christmas, we went in search of waves.

These days I’m moving away from physical presents to more experiential ones. Most of us have so much stuff, it’s almost ridiculous. I still like a nice gift now and again, but it is often the memories that I cherish the most: the trips, the experiences shared. I’ve always said I’d rather have plane tickets than jewelry.

Waves for Christmas sounded about right.

I’ve twice been out to the rugged west coast of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. It’s not a short trip, from Seattle it takes several hours and possibly a ferry, depending on which route you take. But once you put the time and effort in, you are rewarded with waves, real proper waves, and the sound of them crashing on the beach lulling you to sleep. That’s what we were in search of. That’s what we found.

I will always think of my mother and the beach in the same sentence. Much of our leisure time together has been spent walking on beaches. My first excursion as a baby, shortly after being brought home from the hospital, was a walk down to Julia Pfeiffer State Beach in Big Sur, where we were living at the time. Waves are pretty much my birthright.

That beach was followed by many more—on the Island, in Bolinas, even on beaches in Bali. My mother raised me to be an ocean person, her partner in long meandering walks on rock and sand, an eye cocked for interesting shell or stone. We always come back with our pockets filled with bits of nature.

A beach walk makes you slow down, look closer, appreciate the small things. Like an entire world of rainbows.

Or a smartly coiled whip of kelp.

Or the power of the ocean that can wrap up a log in lost buoy rope.

And the marks the water makes in the sand that look like tree branches or roots.

But mostly it is the vast expanse of the ocean that brings me awe, slows me down, makes me happy. There is nothing like the ocean to make you feel small, to put life in its proper perspective, to fill a person with wonder. It works for me, every time.

Because, really, who wouldn’t feel awe at a sight like this? Awe and gratitude for the luck of such beauty, the extreme fortune of being able to fall asleep to the sound of waves and wake to them the next morning. It is a gift, indeed. One I will hold onto, always.

Happy weekend, everyone. May you treasure your gifts, whatever they may be.