December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)
Being at the beach with my parents in July. Sitting out in front of my great-uncle's house in an Adirondack chair and looking at the water, knowing my parents were in the house just behind me.
On that particular beach, my family ties go back 4 generations. It's not a glamorous place. It has blessed privacy, sea oats, and sugar white sand. It's set in the piney woods of North Florida and so it's marshy and boggy in places and smells of salty mud and tannin-stained brackish water. There are yellowflies and horseflies instead of mosquitoes. You look out for stingrays more than jellyfish.
The warmth was perfectly caressing. The scents of hot sand, cut grass, and salt water were overpowering. The colors were as vivid as I've ever seen colors be. I can hear the waves, brisk as the tide comes in. This would be great sailing weather.
I thought, "I'm making a memory now, and I can come back to it at any time."
And I invite you in.
