I’m sitting at the beach as I write this, parked in my car, with my iPad out, and Spotify on. The beach is a place I’ve revisited many times during this pandemic. While everything else has been changing, it has remained a constant.

Sometimes it’s windy and the waves are grey and choppy, other times the water is like a sheet of glass — quiet, still and perfectly uninterrupted. But it’s always there — a reassuring presence, a moment suspended in time. 

I came to the beach right at the beginning of the Corona upheaval. I wasn’t even sure why I came that particular day, but it was what I needed, and my heart knew it, even if I didn’t. I found myself there before I even knew where I was going.

I didn’t have plans once I got there, but I ended up walking for close to an hour, breathing in the freshness, grasping onto the last of the sunshine and the apparent normalcy. It was a balm that washed over me with relief. How could life be changing so quickly when the beach was always there, constant and unchanged? 

This was back in March, before the restrictions came into play, and the talk of Corona was merely a frantic whisper. I met a friend there that day, who had come for similar reasons. “The world’s not coming to an end, right?” she said, and we laughed. 

She was right, the world wasn’t coming to an end, but it was changing. Things were changing every day, and it was scary. We all felt it, that moment when the very ground we stood on felt shaky beyond belief. No, the world wasn’t coming to an end, but it was shifting, morphing into a new kind of reality before our eyes. 

I’ve returned to the same spot many times since that day in March. The air feels different here — cleaner, fresher, more honest, down to earth and real. 

And no matter what else is going on in the world, it continues to be a portal that seems to only exist to those here at this moment, breathing in the same clean air, and letting the heady combination of wind and waves ground us in a way nothing else can. 

A visit to the beach is like receiving a giant hug from an old friend. It’s ok, you can do this. I’ve got you. 

And while the tide may change, and the sky may shift throughout the day, it never disappears. It’s a tiny bit of home in a world that feels foreign and unknown in many ways. 

The waves mirror the rhythm of life, creeping forward and receding in an endless reassuring pattern. Predictability is a blessing the beach gives out in spades. 

So I continue to come here, and watch the waves, as the freshness pervades my spirit, and I allow myself to be moved by its magic, and lifted with renewed hope. 

Life is full of changes, but some things remain as pure and as magical as always. You just need to seek them out. They will be there for you when you’re ready to find them.