Natural Woman

I was hoping to squeeze one more entry before February ended, but so many things happened, it’s hard to keep track, and lo and behold March is now upon us.

I’ve talked about retreating to my happy place when life gets topsy-turvy, but another one of my refuges is the ocean–lately Ocean Beach to be exact.

Having grown up rather land-locked, I now live close to water.  But I’ve often taken it for granted all these years living in San Francisco.  Unfairly, sometimes I’ve associated visits to the beach as how troubled I might be at that given moment to necessitate walking the length of its coastline, when in fact, recently, I’ve gone with family and friends there for birthdays and simple getaways from the city.

As imbued as I am in urban life, it would behoove me to decompress from obligations and responsibilities in our natural surroundings, which often are more comforting and even more beautiful.  This brings me to a terrific documentary I recently saw about Sister Wendy Beckett (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pqhfp), the globetrotting nun whose insights to art thrust her into the international limelight in the 1990s.  She now leads a hermetic life in Quindenham, England, which brings her close to nature and therefore closer to God and a sense of peace–something I must obviously learn to do.