Mother With Child

Mother ocean has a way about her. She gets her way if she wants to. She can bathe your soul or she can scold harshly. Nevertheless, she still loves her children and her children love her. I have been wondering for the past little while why I, a child of the ocean, born, bred, raised, watered, sprinkled with sandy sprinklings and blessed with the sea in my veins, would ever move away from her. But I did. For 13 years I yearned for her. I lived in a place where her song could not be heard, only felt. I thought I would "grow up and get a real job". Thought I would do what I thought was the respectible thing to do. After several corporate companies, being a suit, several thousand corporate meetings, corporate lunches, corporate dinners, corporate Christmas parties, 2oo emails a day, several 2 hour conference calls a week, playing the game and being only a number to the top brass, I realized there was something missing. Something that no number crunching, no amount of money, no twisted corporate ladder could ever, ever fulfill.

The sad part about it is I used to think it was all about that. Focused on the money, the promotion, the recognition. What time I have lost.

In the past 3 months I have reconnected with her. Oh I've been plenty of times over the course of my life but, this was the first time I opened my eyes and really saw her again. She greeted me with open arms. She never forgot my name or how to hug me, heal my wounds, make me forget my pains and nourish my soul. It was as if I had never left her. She did not hold a grudge. She loves me now as she loved me the day I met her.

So here's to you Mother Ocean. With salted coffee and oysters on homemade crackers. With friends who have opened my eyes to what is truly important (Singleton, Skinny and Kimbies) and to this whole new life which was mine all along, only my eyes were out of focus. What a lucky man I am.