Morning, Edisto Beach
I made coffee and walked to the beach this morning, the sun shining full and the sky a cloudless pale blue. Last night I fell asleep to the waves hammering the beach, but this morning the ocean is calm. And everything on the beach is new, deposited by the waves overnight. Millions of shells of every variety lay in the morning sun. I found huge cockles (which look like what I thought clams to be), a big chunk of iron, and several conches, most pitted out from the friction of the sea and sand. When you’re looking for shells, you’re shuffling along the beach slowly, but suddenly, lost in the little treasure hunt, you’re far away from your starting point.
On the walk back to begin my workday, I noticed I was walking at half my normal pace, an ease to my step and an underlying feeling like joy, or bliss. Unfamiliar territory. And then I noticed a thought: what bad thing will soon happen to ruin this for me? I bet my camper breaks down or I crash. I bet my internet fails and I get fired. Negative thinking is something I’ve battled most of my life, usually through humor and lots of exercise and a healthy dose of medication, but it’s truly a bizarre thing to find yourself experiencing some pleasure in life only to think, “I don’t deserve this.”
Today, these thoughts arise and I simply observe them and let them pass. You learn that skill through practice, like anything else. But at one point in my life I was consumed by this way of thinking. These were all my thoughts: I am not good at this. I’m no good. Evidence to the contrary has piled up over the decades now, and good friends have helped, and that bullshit is 99% in the past, but it’s something you carry, I think, forever. And that’s fine. These patterns that trace heavily trod pathways in your brain have to be rewritten. You have to find new ways to walk, to think, to wear down the grass where there wasn’t a path before, because otherwise how does that new path get there? Every night the ocean clears the beach. Every morning, it’s all new again.
Issue: I made the coffee too weak this morning.
Evening
Our VP announced his departure to take a new job today. We’re also interviewing folks for a new position—director of my office, Creative Services. He/she will be my boss. So much change at work. It’ll look much different a year from now. After work, with an hour of daylight to spare, I went fishing on the beach with no luck, but something took my bait. What could it have been? Work is really cutting into my fishing time. I’m also in desperate need of some exercise.
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