salt and sweet and time

this morning it was windy and white outside and i sat on the porch of the inn where mike and i spent our first night ever as married people and i looked out over that gray atlantic ocean and all that granity rock and missed it.  i had spent the night alone in that inn having come up to celebrate the retirement of my 'godfather'.  i call him that, or 'uncle', but he is the man, of that generation, i'm closest to after my own father.  this morning, i looked in the mirror and tried to remember what i looked like 18 years ago-  but i just saw me looking back- with some more lines and freckles and thankfully, some maturity.

it's been a while since i've been back to new england and maybe forever since i've been back and alone.  it's beautiful and incredibly familiar and in it's rocky cragginess and shrubbery and peeling paint and un-manicured lawns, it seems realer than most other places.  like 'life' is happening- so things on the outside don't get tended to.  like in the battle with the weather and the seasons, nature wins - so you find your place in it and let things be.  and the people and their voices feel this way too.  softer in their weatheredness.  like sea glass and driftwood.  it makes me miss this place and it's deep history.

i ate breakfast quickly and walked out onto the rocks to feel that wind and smell the tide pools and seaweed and salt.  it has always given me a lonely feeling, standing on the eastern coast, because the wind comes from behind, off the land, like it's pushing you out to sea- like you're standing there alone with the world you know behind you- and you need to pay attention to what's ahead- you need to forge on.  it's a very different feeling than the west coast which seems to say- 'you're at the end, turn around and enjoy it'.

the celebration started with a lovely luncheon and then moved on to a time of music and reflection and more celebration of this man and his wife and their lives and their influence. the second part was at an amazing concert hall- small venue- newly renovated, seated on the coast line, and spectacular.  the seats all looked onto the stage, but behind the stage was a plate glass wall over looking the ocean.  so we sat looking out at the new england coast and listening to beautiful music and hearing about the impact that two people can have on a community.  i kept envisioning how cool it would be to watch a storm come in from this concert hall, with a moving piano piece being played on that steinway and a few candles- how powerful that would be.

but most of the time i sat in my seat with my eyes leaking.  that's how it felt.  they were leaking.  i wasn't anywhere near the ugly cry, i was just silently leaking tears.  i was full up and it had to come out. 

the hour was a celebration of a job well done, of a marriage well grown, of a commitment to vision, integrity, humility, following God, and influencing wherever you are. so i cried because i felt blessed to have been part of it, of them.  and i cried because of time and life's movement and its seasons. and how this community of people, these peers of my parents,  have suddenly become my grandparents age, and some people who were couples are now widows, and there are hearing aids and canes and cancer.  and now i'm getting close to the age that my parents were when i got married- in this community- with these people.  and i couldn't help thinking about what will happen in the next 18 years- or even 8 years.  who's lives will we celebrate because they're over, not just retired?  and whose celebrations will we miss living so far away?  and will there be regrets? 

but that ocean stood back there behind it all- that old, old ocean that's been there forever and as the music ranged from spirituals to jazz, my soul grasped the poignancy of sadness sitting beside joy and thanks, again.  like how the flavors of sweet are brought out and so much better with the salty.  and then we stood to sing, and i did with my voice cracking,
'this cornerstone, this solid ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
what heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when striving cease
my comforter, my all in all-
here in the love of Christ i stand.'

so cracking and leaking and listening and looking i found some answers to those questions. 
go where you feel you should go.
influence where you are- wherever that is.
grow your marriage and your relationships.
be committed to your vision, to integrity, to humility.
live in the heights of love and the depths of peace.
trust the firmness of the solid ground.
be stilled in the comfort.

and like that salty craggily new england coast, this community will be here, in some form, as it was 18 years ago, as it is now. we are made of salt and sweet and mineral- and life flavors all of us. and our stories, our words, our music will live on and influence others.  but it is who we allow ourselves to be in this world that makes the biggest impact, wherever we are.