CATEGORIES
- ANIMAL STORIES: PUBLISHED
- ARTS: PUBLISHED
- CHILDREN AND YOUTH: PUBLISHED
- COMMUNITY: PUBLISHED
- EDUCATION: PUBLISHED
- FAITH AND RELIGION: PUBLISHED
- GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS: PUBLISHED
- KC BUSINESS JOURNAL: PUBLISHED
- KC STUDIO MAGAZINE: PUBLISHED
- NATURE: PUBLISHED
- PEOPLE: PUBLISHED
- POETRY
- PUBLISHED WORK
- UMKC
- WASHINGTON STATE U.
New Year’s Sand Pen
One of the reasons I moved to Oregon is because, for much of my life, I dreamed of living near the ocean or the mountains. I imagined I would never have an unhappy moment if I could live near the ocean or the mountains. And, I imagined that the people who did live near one or the other rarely had unhappy moments. How could you,?if you lived in paradise?
?
I have certainly had unhappy moments in Oregon, but living within hands reach of both the mountains and the ocean is everything I imagined–when it comes to the pure bliss the beauty of this earth has to offer. I love the coast.?Yes. I love the sound, the smell, the look, the peace of the coast. ?
?
I was there for my first two?New Years in Oregon.?2015 will be?my third. My first year, I was walking with Mickey on the beach, New Years day, and met a women who had brought her two nieces to the coast to celebrate 2013. I noticed her on the beach, using a long thin branch to write big words in the sand. I watched and when she finished, I introduced myself and asked her what she was writing.
?
She was writing her hopes and dreams for the New Year, she told me. And, her nieces had done the same.?The waves were washing them away, as we spoke. I sensed that was the intention.
?
So, after she left, I?searched for?my own sand pen. I?found?a cool piece of driftwood that looks like a very large, hand-carved pen and I wrote a letter in the sand. Scratched in big, awkward letters in the hard, dense sand close to the tide’s edge,?I wrote my dreams??and wishes for the new year. Then, I watched the waves take them to where they would, I hoped, be answered.?
?
I brought my sand pen home and put a pink bow around the top and named it ‘Sand Pen.’ I took it to Harris Beach for New Years, 2014 and will do the same?this 2015, with some new hopes and dreams to write about in the sand.