*insert sound of the surf here*

One year ago, I was taking this picture. It's the bridge at Newport, taken from the Embarcadero Resort across the bay. Amazingly, the photo did not do justice to the beauty of reality.

I'm longing for the beach, I've realized. Haven't been since the turn of the new year, and even then we didn't get much actual beach time because of the cold, wintery storms.

Just this morning, the boys left for a day at the coast, to go clamming...the season is open, apparently. Funny, we don't eat clams and even Rob does not like them, either. They like to go dig and then give them to my Dad, who just LOVES them! It's pretty physical work to get them, and he can't manage anymore.

When I was a kid, we spend so much time at the coast. We dug clams, caught surf perch and trapped dungeness crab in our little star nets off the pier. My dad liked to call it "livin' off the land" except that we still needed to eat fresh produce. I definitely had my fill of seafood as a young person, it's no biggie now to forego what I now know is not kosher. I still remember fried razor clam strips dipped in tarter and sweet crab meat dipped in butter...beachy memories. I also remember sand in my shoes and inside my sleeping bag, too! (I hate sand...it gets everywhere!)

I guess what I want most is to feel the wind in my hair, the sand under my feet, fresh air in my lungs and the great expanse that is the ocean's edge. You can always meet The Creator there, it would seem, along with the seagulls and sandpipers.

I wonder if they miss me, too.