Lessons on joy from Kalaloch Beach, Olympic National Park
and slow moments and feather kites are the teachers
Parked in our campground, the window on Mike’s side of the bed framed a view of Kalaloch Beach in Olympic National Park with sand bar waves rolling in that were good enough to surf. This famous location is a pristine stretch of Washington forever bounded by piles of perfectly formed, oblong stones, and littered with giant silvery dinosaur-bone driftwood.
Lying in bed, my head propped on a pillow so I could see the ocean, my visual frame was filled with waves sparkling with sunshine that we hadn’t seen in days of overcast weather. The camper resonated with the music of the sea, as if it were a very large shell held up to my ear.
There was nowhere I would rather have been in all the world than right there, in that moment, and I was filled with a sweet and billowing joy that brought tears to my eyes.
A realization crystallized: To fully enter the present and occupy it with all of ourselves, at any given moment, was a choice given not only to me, but to each of us. Wonder and gratitude are …
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