Jilly Brandon

Warm water splashing over your feet, and standing with your toes buried in the softest sand imaginable, is one of my most favorite things.

Even just writing down these words brings a huge smile to my face, and my breathing escapes a little easier, and in this slower, and more rhythmic pace… I pause, and take in these incredible surroundings.

This pausing, somehow just releases the most intense longings inside me, to just mermaid my way out into the shades of blue expanse of ocean in front of me, and just float about indefinitely.

As far as my eye can look,  it’s just blue, aquamarine, sea foam green, emerald, and brilliant turquoise sea, that stretches, and reaches into the sky, where it becomes deep azure blue, navy, and dotted with fluffy white clouds..like a multitude of exclamation points.

This scene is mesmerizing , and the hypnotic crashing of the waves upon the shore, is a triumphant pounding, like the sound  of a million drum beats.  The white caps crash, and turn, and then draw back towards their beginning.

The scent of salt, and sea life permeates the gentle breeze, and the moist mist from the sea spray dampens my sweating skin.  It’s the best mist of all.

If only the camera lense could truly encapsulate the overwhelming vision of this ocean, and all of its glory, but, alas, it cannot.  The eye looks with a filter that was custom designed by the ultimate creator, and it’s not just the seeing, but the taste of the salt on your lips, the heat of the sun on your back, the touch of the grains of sand, and the incredible sounds of this place.  It’s the way the scent of fish, and fresh air is ever present.  All of our senses are involved in this experience.

It is intoxicating, and I am overwhelmed with emotion.  I can’t help but feel the ebb and flow of life, entering, and exiting, and it leaves me with a yearning to stay in the blue of this place.

There are multiple islands dotting the horizon, like an ever hopeful oasis in the expanse of water.  These islands look close, and quite reachable, but the distance between a known shore, and the safety of the other side, is farther away than it looks.

We took an exillarating ride on the jet skis the other day, and the choppy waves of the open water threatened to throw us off multiple times.  In the bay, and closer to land, it was calmer, and much less rough, but the strength of those waves out on the sea, instantly made me respect this intense power that these waters have.

It is water to be respected, and revered.  It can be a wonderful playmate, or an unforgiving tsunami.  Calm one moment, and a life destroying wall of water, the next.

This place where we are blessed to be staying is aptly named, “Shades of Blue.”  Only the ocean could possibly give you all of these multi faceted shades.

My mind however, has been captivated by the blueness in my being, and how it is possible to ping pong back and forth between the the joy of the blue, and the almost sorrow simultaneously.

The bustle and hustle of everyday things can cloud out these sensations, and these feelings can be dark and foreboding as a midnight sky, but also can hold ” serenity of a clear blue mountain lake,”( courtesy of John Denver.)

The soothing flat and calmness match the rhythm of your beating heart.

Hurricane Maria is in our cross hairs, and has already decimated other islands.  The locals here have boarded up some windows, and stowed away their possessions in anticipation of this storm.

We shopped at the local grocery store, and were able to purchase the necessary food items for our stay.  I noticed that these local people don’t seem super alarmed by this imminent threat of yet another hurricane..

The weather has been balmy and hot, and the water is as warm as the bath.  It doesn’t feel conceivable that there is a threat out there brewing in the air.

This just speaks to me of most threats and warnings.  It’s hard to take them seriously when all around is sunny, with blue skies.  Unless these storms threaten you, or your loved ones, and I wonder if my own home could be blown down,only then do  I stay in my own “safe harbour” of sorts.

When the hurricane of death, or divorce obliterates your former life…I consider that It feels like gale force winds, the debris of broken dreams, and uprooted trees, and sewage spill into your waterways…

The wind picks you up by the ends of your hair, and bashes you up against the walls of your home, it churns you around like  you were in a massive blender, and when the power goes out, and all is still,  you find yourself sitting in the blackness, all of your bits are just… mush.

You  become fragmented, you are flattened.  You will never, ever be that  same person as before, again.

You lie against the bottom of the glass container of your life… and there you are…Your  contents have been shifted, like the sand through an hour glass, and the box that  was meant to be shipped, “this end up,” was delivered in the opposite way.

This just feels like way too much, and it seems as if somebody, somewhere should have followed the directions better for how your life was supposed to go.

 

I felt like I was standing on a firm foundation of my life, and in my marriage, but instead it has turned into shifting sand beneath my feet.  The rock has been hit by dynamite, and the more I struggle to make sense  of it all, the more I sink down in… and all is quick sand.

For now… I decide… I will make friends with this sand.. I will cease to move.. I will he still, and just exist for a time, because that is what is needed.  I’m reminded yet again by a wise counselor, ” just do the next thing.”

Don’t strive, and plan, and try and make sense of it all…just be…and let my surroundings carry me away.

My body even seems to know, and seeks for me to allow myself to wait and see where the next footsteps will take me.

The me that I knew before is becoming different.  Hopefully not jaded, just evolved, heated with fire, and refined.

It feels like the bits and pieces of sea glass, that have been discarded by the sea, and washed up onto the shore.  They have a story to tell.  What were they before, from whence did they come?

These brightly colored fragments are gathered up, and made into something else… sometimes priceless works of art, and one of a kind jewelry.  It becomes  a completly different artifact that comes through the other side.

This is as it should be……

It is impossible to remain the same when you have been smashed and broken.  This is an opportunity.  Much as pieces of glass are re-created , and recycled, re-purposes  into something  different, the human spirit in all of its brilliant resilience, can be re-birthed, if I let it.

Embracing the change, instead of running away from it, that is the challenge.

There needs to be a new glass, and new color.  There will be a myriad of fresh experiences that will dot my horizon.

This week I remember my girl, my sweet, incredible little mermaid Bianca.   It’s been two years, since I have seen her…

Swimming with the sting rays the other day; for the second time this year, I was struck again at how being with them, felt like being with my dear girl.  They are friendly, and playful, and they brushed up against me, and kissed my legs, and I shrieked with delight.

 

Such a gift it was to me… I cried, because being with these incredible sea creatures felt like I was back with her again…This may sound kindy kooky as I even try to explain my feelings, but I just know that they were sent to bring comfort, and they did.

I can always begin again, until my time on earth ends, and even though the storm can rage all around me at times, it doesn’t have to consume me.

“The anchor of my soul,” Jesus , is still there amidst the fiercest , most gut wrenching anguish of loss, and the cleansing water that He promises, washes over me, and creates in me… a newness, and strength of heart….I am thankful…..and I remember her, and even though my arms ache  to hold her, and I yearn to kiss those sweet cheeks again, and hear her melodious giggle… I know for her, she exists amid an ocean of color, that my eyes as yet cannot possibly comprehend…