Feeling the texture of the calm beneath

I used to be astounded that my cousins, who lived by the sea, didn't go to the beach every day! I knew that I would! Well, years later I find myself living by the sea, and I astound myself some days if I haven't been to the beach. Of course it's awesome when the surf is up and I'm riding beautiful waves well past sunset, and it's fantastic that the water is currently so warm that a sunrise swim is the way I've been waking up the past few weeks. What I'm loving at the moment is the sense of the sand beneath my feet; I walk the beach with my eyes closed, experiencing it with all my other senses: the sensation of the ground as if my feet are moving the world (as on a treadmill but definitely without the drudgery), sometimes hard then suddenly squelchy, then hard again, then wet; the sounds: many layers of the sound of surf, the intermittent wavelets breaking at my feet, the white surf rushing to shore along the long beach, the big waves pounding further out, seagulls and the footsteps of others as we pass; the taste of salt on my lips, and the subtly ever-changing scent of the sea air. Somehow I walk or run straight, my senses helping me miss the bits of kelp and seashells scattering the sand, and, when I open my eyes another sensory feast is presented for my enjoyment, completely different every time.

Beneath the apparent turmoil of incidents and accidents in our daily lives lies our calm - always there, like the silky soft sand we stand on while wild waves wash over our feet, receding, returning, receding again...