For me, joy is living on the beach during the off-season. I hike to the end of the wooden walkway, even on the stormiest of days, just to feel part of the rhythm of the earth and her cycles. Often, I'll take short walks, looking to see what the sea has spit out onto the beach. I've gotten into the habit of looking for something small to take home with me for awhile -- a pretty shell, an interesting piece of driftwood, a colorful piece of beach glass, or an unusually shaped pebble. I love sand dollars, but they are difficult to find during the winter. I feel lucky when I can find one.

       Shortly after I moved into this tiny winter rental on the beach, I was forced to choose between holding on to my values and ethics or holding on to my job. I chose my values and ethics, but was worried I might never find what I was meant to do with my life. As I walked the beach, I silently asked the Universe to show me what I should be doing as my life's work. I'd guessed wrong so many times already. I spelled out all my unreasonable specifics, doubting that such a job existed, but making it clear I wasn't willing to settle for anything less. "Give me a clue, please!" I half-heartedly started exploring the idea of submitting some of my writing to magazines, but I honestly wasn't enthused about the freelance writing process. I just didn't know what else to do, and felt the need to do something.

       One evening, I was feeling particularly fearful, frustrated and impatient with the Universe. Speaking out loud (thank goodness the beach was deserted!), I said, "I want to find a sand dollar tonight. I know that asking for this is unreasonable because its almost dark out and even if one is here, I probably won't be able to see it, and yes, I know I'm walking in other people's footprints, so if one has indeed made it to the beach, someone else has probably already found it -- but I'm asking none-the-less. Yes, I know I'm unrelenting and stubborn -- so what's new? Is this request any more unreasonable than my career request? No. I always seem to be asking for the impossible --- but I'm asking anyway. I'm sorry. This is just who I am. This is what I want. This is what would make my heart happy." Sure enough, not two minutes later, my eye was caught by an almost black, but perfectly round object, almost the size of a quarter, and about a foot outside the track of footsteps. I picked it up and it was indeed a sand dollar! I held it against my heart, together with its messages to me:

1. No matter how unreasonable my request might sound to my own ears, if it came from my heart, it was not unreasonable;
   
   
2. I didn't have to worry about missing it -- even though it was after sunset, and the sand dollar was black, not white, I had still seen it.
   

       The next day, I set the little black sand dollar next to my computer. As I worked on an article about personality type, I found myself wondering if what I'd written was really more like a book chapter than a magazine article. I glanced at my little sand dollar, and let myself hope that maybe it wasn't such an unreasonable request to make my living through writing books, not magazine articles. By the end of the day, I'd come up with the idea for this book. By the end of the following day, I'd identified the one hundred activities that I wanted to use. I felt so energized, I decided to go for a jog instead of a walk. The sun had just set, and I was forced to look down at my feet while running, so I wouldn't trip. As I jogged along the beach, I joked with the Universe, teasingly asking it to bring me another sand dollar. I smiled, because I knew I was moving too fast to be able distinguish detail -- there was no way I'd see it, even if it was there. A hundred yards later I heard something crunching under my feet. I slowed down to see what I was stepping on. The beach was littered with sand dollars -- over twenty of them clustered along a ten foot stretch of beach!

       As much as I loved her book, I have to respectfully disagree with Anne Morrow Lindbergh -- it's okay to be greedy and impatient if it is your heart, not your mind, that is anxiously looking for a gift from the sea.


The sea does not reward those who are too anxious,
too greedy, or too impatient.

One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach --
waiting for a gift from the sea.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh