It’s the day after Christmas. I am off of work til January 5, which is a nice long break for me. But I am feeling unsettled this morning. Kind of like, wow, what do I do now?

The weeks before Christmas are full of decorating the house, buying gifts, mailing gifts. And baking baking baking,lol. Dozens of cookies, a couple of cakes. Trying to spend time with the people I love too.

So this morning….I’m making a list of what I want to get done. First, I want to get to the gym, lol. And begin to work off some of those baked goods, lol. I have errands for the house I want to get done. I need to clean the house too! I mean, you know, the get in the corners, get that space behind the toilet that I always let go. I need to get a new lens for my kitchen light, I need to start to figure out how to replace the glass in my fireplace door that exploded last year. I need to order fuel oil, I need to try and figure out how to read my fuel oil gauge, I need to get two new tires for my car.

But….I don’t want to just stay busy. I am feeling a need to be creative.

I want to write. I want to work on the book I have not picked up in months. I’m in the editing stage, and not really enjoying that as much as writing. But I want to actually finish this someday. So it is something I need to get through. Maybe it will be one of those “your struggles make you strong” kind of things. But here I am, instead of editing, writing this blog.

I want to make some jewelry. I have so many many stones to wrap, so many things that are sitting in my bead cases waiting to be made.

I want to get to the ocean. Crazy, I’m sure some people think. It’s winter. But the sea is beautiful now. The beaches are empty, and the air is clear. The horizons are void of activity of boats, save the occasional commercial fisherman, or barge. No one plies the waters to Block Island or Montauk for pleasure in December. No, the only activity is the sea itself, teeming with life below the surface. The waves, the perpetual motion, on the surface. The surf pounding the shore in its beautiful rhythmic song.

The winter sea

The sea breeze grazes my cheek, it tosses my hair, bringing me to life with it’s scent. It is vast, and beautiful, and reminds me I am a teeny part of some grand design, and I am blessed, and calmed.

Sometimes I am lucky and get to go with someone who loves it as I do. It is a place we share, that is made even grander by the sharing. We scour the beach together, he finds me a pine cone, I find him a shell, he brings me nugget of quartz, smoothed and rounded by years of rolling in the sand, perfect for a pendant. Sometimes we find a lovely peace of sea glass, the more rounded and soft the edges, the longer it has been kept by the ocean, which now gives it up for our pleasure.

When we look to the sea, I think our dreams are similar, not the same. I look, toward what I call “The Places of My Dreams.” The beautiful islands, coves, beaches, harbors, that dot the New England Coast.  I know what it is like to make a crossing that might be hours long, on a blue blue sea on a blue blue day. His dreams, I don’t know. But he spent years living out there, out of sight of land, in the company of few men, and lots of water, and fish. He understands it better than I…he reads it better than I. But our love for it is probably equal.

So, this morning, I am unsettled. I don’t know where to begin, but begin I must. I think I may want to take a small break from HAVING to do things, run errands, clean house…..let me have a day to myself, to remember who I am, to do the things I love to do, not what I have to do. See if I can figure out what I want to accomplish in the New Year. And perhaps, come a little closer to being the person I want to be.

Writing is so cathartic for me. I think, that after I go to the gym, I will take the advice of my man- friend-lover and “Let it be”.  I’ll let the day unfold the way it will. And let love lead the way.  Do a little more learning to live like water.