Cannon Beach, Here We Come!

It was winter dark at 7am. Within the next half an hour gossamer streaks of sunrise would start to paint out the darkness. We were headed for a weekend trip down to Cannon Beach with Morrie and Em.

In the darkness and quietness of the car, as we whooshed down the I5 highway, we recounted stories of our trip to Calgary to our friends. Our week so far had seen us spend Monday and Thursday in Vancouver, and Tuesday and Wednesday in Calgary. Now it was Friday and we were in Washington State headed down to a Christmas Conference in Cannon Beach, Oregon, until Sunday.

I looked forward to spending the weekend with our friends in this little jewel of a town. I also looked forward to a wintery walk on the beach.

Would the seagulls swoop up into the sky as if they were one just as they did in the summer? I had enjoyed lying on the summery warm beach with the seagulls squawking and swooping in the cloudless sky above me. A disturbance would set them all a flight: their circling orchestrated by an unseen conductor. It fascinated me how they circled and flew in different directions but still operated as a whole and didn't collide.

With my private view of the seagulls in flight directly above me, I felt part of their display. In that moment, I was a little girl again, seeing the world from a different angle. It reminded me of the times, as a girl, I would lie on the grass, look up at the African sky and lose myself in the shapes of the clouds. It's a surreal experience of time ceasing and being fully present in the moment.

I looked forward to seeing the seagulls, and I wondered which new memories would make their way home with us on Sunday.