I Hand You a Golden Key
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
"I Hand You a Golden Key"
- an essay examining :
the personal relationship one has
within certain geographies
- essay-accompanying photographs :
open the "ocean portfolio" tab.
Have you ever re-visited a place
& it was like re-meeting a dear old friend ?
Did your visit to that place give you a sense of grounded-ness
& re-connection with your self ?
...Or a stronger sense of wholeness.
Have you once gone somewhere to a place geographically
& it gave you a sense of coming home to yourself ?
This week I stopped & asked myself :
what is it ?? that I really need ??
to do for myself.
What is it ?? that I had a longing for ??
What was something ?? that felt was missing ??
What is ?? my single-most most deepest desire ??
The instantaneous
& immediate
answer was :
“Go to the ocean.”
My heart cheered back
loudly hollering :
“Yes !! ... Exactly.... Precisely... YES !!”
I googled hotel / Cannon Beach / fireplace.
The first one I located, I reserved for the next evening.
Packed a bag with a heavy coat, a book, knitting, & bottle of wine.
The next morning drove inside the foggiest rainiest white blurry clouds
wipers on full blast hard to see hard to drive drive.
& !! 6 hrs later !! I arrived exactly at check-in time
at the front desk of thee most so comfortable for me
just just right for my taste
all aged wood all odd angular compartments
all of it was thee most just right style lodgings.
Never been there.
I did not opt for staying in the same old
known hotel from long ago.
I was not looking to relive the old days.
This was my new now visit to the ocean.
& man oh man was I pleasantly surprised
with my final destination point.
When I entered my room
on the top 3rd floor
I was overcome
with a calm contentment.
The room was ideal.
Simply elegantly groovy funky neat-o neat
& compactly small.
Yes ! It included a little deck with a wow view out at the ocean.
Skylights that lit up the room & a fireplace to warm the room.
Crooked angled making it so much more cosy walls & ceiling.
Furnished in whites & soft blue hues ahhh.
All just just so right-o right-on right.
I felt so darn much at home & serenely comfortable.
What pure magical good luck.
Put on my coat.
Headed out to walk
the wide open space
of the Pacific Ocean.
That space that I had been longing for,
for so many decades & decades.
The vastness,
the space,
the wide open,
the freedom granted,
the pounding surf sound,
the sand,
the waves crashing,
the fresh air,
the birds,
the feeling of being so alive,
that once again safe familiar surroundings
like none other
that encompasses your
entire body soul spirit heart head mind senses breath vision hearing being.
I am here.
I have really truly finally made it back.
All my cells danced the happy dance.
Overcome by instant verklempt-ness
because the remembrances now surfaced &
the realization of what exactly this place means to me,
I christened my pilgrimage with a few spontaneous teardrops.
All my changes were there.
All my changes were there.
I walked the beach
& begin seeing
multiple scenes
from my past
materialize
right in front of my eyes
only they were now
in actuality
& real life & in the present time.
I see Timmy with a big bright bucket. Looks identically just like him.
I see his sister Gabby running running wearing bright colors right there.
Looks just like her when I was here before.
I see myself in somebody else running out into the water.
I am mirrored in a girl there, looking, sounding,
& feeling & expressing herself just how I looked that day so long ago.
I see a couple holding hands, yes,
I see myself in them also.
I was reliving the long ago.
All the years were re-surfacing.
From so long ago.
Fifty years ago ago
when I had very first arrived here.
Fifty years ago I discovered this place.
I have been drawn to it like a magnet
on a compass rose for so many many sojourns ever since.
So many different life changing chapters of my life
started & ended here.
This place represents my personal re-set button.
This environment clears my head.
This environment revitalizes me.
This space energizes me.
Breathes new life into me.
All that.
Yet what was astoundingly different this time around,
besides the fact that it had been so many decades since last being here,
I found myself seeing in the now reality,
scenes of the long ago remembrances
of once being here from long ago.
What that did,
I later realized, was,
as if,
I reconnected to my historical long ago self.
And in coming to see this,
I also understood now
that I had actually been living
unconnected to my way past self.
Since back fusion surgery
when I physically froze for a 15 months,
besides withstanding high volt shock levels of pain,
I understood coming out of that experience,
that I needed to reclaim lost parts
of my self that had left my body.
How to smile, how to laugh, how to be physically flexible again without fear.
Since the fusion surgery & the healing I have been actively working on
reuniting with these immediate kinds of things that I recognized as lost &
had left me during that time & they all needed to be rediscovered & recovered again.
What I saw at the ocean this week
was a geography in which my feet
had traversed many times over my life.
My footprints had been pressed into
those sands of time over & over again all my earlier years.
Those same old ancient trees were there with me then.
Those same waves.
That place still held me within it.
And when I went back to visit this week,
I recaptured that gap in personal history
& I recognized myself
& saw myself there thru other people
who were walking the beach,
jumping in the water,
people squealing with joy,
people laughing,
people being at the beach.
Each one each scene
I encountered
looked identical
to my original life story from the past.
I saw my first high as a kite honeymoon milestone there.
I saw the deeply grief-filled devastating time my best friend’s wife & I took his ashes there.
I saw the goofy antics of somebody head over cartwheel heels in love.
I saw the bursting out loud genuine ear to ear pretty mighty
tremendously large smile on my 20 yr face.
I saw the spontaneous fun jumping up & down in the water interacting
with a stranger next to me another kid doing the same.
& there was Timmy. There was Gabby. For real.
I saw the oceanside visits with my mom & dad by my side.
& all the many visits by myself when all my changes were there.
And.
Here I was.
50 years of the ocean
all together collecting
all those times
& welcoming them back inside me.
Surprisingly, this time round,
it was the ocean
that provided this gift of wholeness to me.
A long lost at sea
treasure box full of jewels
personally presented to my memory,
to reopen recall reclaim re-be & come all the way back home.
I find it sort of weird,
you know,
the things you might discover
if you stop
& seriously ask yourself,
out of the blue,
hey there, yah you,
the one too busy
taking care of busy-ness, you,
can I have your attention for just a minute ? :
What is it that you really need
to do for yourself right now.
& : this is : The Golden Key
I am handing you right now.
If you were to just stop for a moment
& ask yourself that one
simply profound possibilities loaded question.
You might discover
some latent dormant insights about yourself.
Some things that nobody else could tell you.
Only you know.
To stop & give yourself
the time & space
& esp. the permission
to discover what exactly
would it be and is and will be
the greatest gift you could give yourself.
I had no idea
that taking the time out
to place myself back in a space
could hold so much power.
So much power
over my longings,
my personhood,
my being & who I am.
Yes, & I do swear
& know
that geography holds
the same force
as a good friend,
as does love.
Geography can hold you,
like an overwhelming bear hug.
Geography encompasses
a physical landscape
that is sort of like a stage setting
for a story that you once lived.
And geography
can release that story
for you by being back inside the story
where it all took place.
It was not a going back in time,
nor a trying to re-live again,
nor an attempted homecoming at all.
It was more like a fusion of me with my self.
A fusion of who I was and who I had been.
Home is where the heart is.
