Time keeps flowing... in Daydreaming on the Porch

Time keeps flowing, like a river, to the sea…

Alan Parsons Project

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.

Pearl S. Buck

As I sit beside the ocean this afternoon, listening to the timeless sounds of waves crashing onshore as high tide retreats, I think once again about the many summers going back more than 50 years that I have spent at this beach, at this same spot. Alone with my thoughts, of course, but not lonely or sad this evening.

It’s late summer, the sea breeze is cool, and I am utterly relaxed. Quite a contrast to the fast-pace of the week gone by with its worries and concerns, terrible climate and weather news, and constant reminders of mortality and the passage of time. They seem inescapable now that I have reached a certain age. And, of course, always foremost on my mind these days are the huge changes ahead as I prepare to reluctantly move from the house where I live now and where I cared for my mother in her last years, downtown in a beautiful city in a leafy old residential neighborhood. During this long and seemingly endless pandemic, I’ve had abundant time to cherish the memories of Mom and so many family gatherings over the years. Now as I unwind and listen to the waves, I am reminded that nothing really changes here by the ocean. Time seems to stand still. Only the moment matters.

These photos were taken in the past week or so:

An afternoon at the beach:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/4852w5