Beach Time

The intention today was to make it to low tide at the beach, but Saturdays mornings are sometimes slow at our house and we missed the low tide point by a couple of hours.  I was disappointed, however I need to remember that just going to the beach is wonderful enough.  It didn't take long for our family and dear friend Martha to find a perfect driftwood "train log" as the boys called it.  S & T were content to play imaginary games while the "grown-ups" talked.  Sitting on a train log is much like wandering slowly with a friend- words just seem to spill out to one another: dreams discussed and plans made.  Every once and a while someone notices something on the horizon and everyone stops to watch.  Today we saw many sails unfurled as the boats pulled out of the nearby marina.

Slow time.

I realize that my original intentions for the day was to "show" the boys tide pools, but that would have just been too much for the day.  We did exactly what we needed to.  In the Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature (a book I have just begun reading- that feels like talking to an old friend). There is a section on the importance of both wandering and unstructured time. Within it is a great quote by Wendell Berry from his Essay An Entrance to the Woods

"The faster one goes, the more strain there is on the senses, the more they fail to take in, the more confusion they must tolerate or gloss over-and the longer it takes to bring the mind to a stop in the presence of anything."

One day we will wander further than the train log...but it will not be without some intention, a good picnic and planned dawdling along the way.