Sunday Gratitude Journal: Family and sand

We took a long weekend and went to Manzanita to spend time with Tom's family. I love the ocean. I love the pounding and the tides and the sky and the stretches of sand. I love spending time talking with these marvelous people and walking for long stretches and drinking in everything.

I'm grateful for solitary walks on the sand, when the mist is still rising. Or perhaps it doesn't rise all day.

I'm grateful for the sculpting of water and sand, water on sand.

...a jellyfish...

I'm grateful for family. Here, the three sisters-in-law. What you can't see: the herd of small dogs following the man who snapped our picture.

I'm grateful for a walk through old-growth forest

and starfish in the tidepools,

barnacles, creatures who survive in drastic circumstances,

the flowering sea anemones

and colonies of mussels,

those vast multitudes of nature that scale from an giant cedar to a small mussel on the wall of a cave,

the way the stones show time and water,

and a snake

but mostly, this time with family. I am thankful.