Half Way to 124 Years Old

This week I celebrated my 62nd birthday or, as I prefer to say, I’m half way to 124 years old. It was the best birthday yet. Hubby and I got up at 4:45 AM and made our way at 5:06 AM to the beach with the best easterly facing view: Manauhant.

What a great way to begin a new year of life!

It was twilight as we hit the beach with chairs and assorted snacks. I was surprised at how light it was and the sun hadn’t yet shown a sliver.

To the west was the setting moon– a big peachy pizza pie slipping down the horizon. I love the juxtaposition.

We were the only ones on the beach — loved the solitude.

We sat in our sweatpants and sweatshirts, sipping a thermos of hot black coffee and watched the sky turn colors.  First a warm pink then a lighter, brighter yellow.

The clouds were placed perfectly to give added reflection. Before long the top slice of the sun appeared. It was like a surprise gift–so much better than expected. Little by little it rose to meet or make the day.

It made my day! I tried to capture some of it on camera, but didn’t want to to miss being in the moment.

Before I knew it, the ball of fire was in full view and quite impressive. For that half hour, our world stopped and all that we focused on was the rising sun.

It was like magic. I have no doubt that the ancients were convinced that it was divine or quite extraordinary. I did a few Sun Salutations because it seemed like the normal, right thing to do. And thus began my sixty second year.

We spent the whole day at the beach, with lots of quiet time before the rest of the world awoke and put on their swimsuits. There was time to gab and talk about everything I wanted to do this year. We nibbled goodies from the cooler and had our books to read, pads of paper to write on, my knitting was often in hand and now a bit sandy.  That’s OK, the kids will love winter hats with bits of beach sand in the pattern.

The quiet simplicity of it all was the best. Seagulls visited because David fed them bagels.

Pretty shells and sea glass found their way into my beach bag to maybe become jewelry. We kept finding clouds shaped like punctuation marks or animals in the sky.

As the day moved on and the sun was overhead, we took several dips to cool off and start the process of warming up all over again. With a beach bouquet and ginger molasses cookies in hand, we celebrated, and I loved every minute of it.