We spent a week visiting the Atlantic Ocean from Fenwick Island, DE. My life began in the salt water of the Gulf of Mexico. My mom swears that I learned to swim before I learned to walk. But like most Southerners, she likes a good story more than the boring facts, so who knows if that is exactly true. Sea water is definitely a part of my nativity.
I chose to bring my family out here to the ocean so that we could unplug from our regularly scheduled lives and let the waves and the weather dictate our choices and set us up for restorative unplanned possibilities each day. I am not the kind of mom who forces her children to march out of the house at the crack of dawn and endure vacation activities (whether you like it or not). My kids are at the age where I can extend the offer, “Would you like to go with us to the beach?” And they can accept or decline. And when they choose to stay in their rooms, I drive away wondering if they are nuts… or maybe I am nuts? Who knows? We are probably all nuts.
We so seldom make a trip that is just for us to get away. It feels completely luxuriant and a little disorienting to be visiting the ocean and not family. But then I got to thinking, maybe the ocean is my family? Maybe we have come to Fenwick Island to visit Mother Ocean and let her kiss us with salt spray? Maybe we are here for the embrace of Sister Storm who blew in on Thursday night and stayed through the weekend. Maybe we came to see the Holy Ghost Crab, elusive and adorable when we caught him with our flashlights on our nighttime beach trip.
Mother Ocean 
Sister Storm 
Holy Ghost Crab
Perhaps, all of creation is my family and we have come to visit these ancient relatives and receive their hospitality.
Next week, I will spend time getting ready to hike with my cousin, the ancient mountain spine of the Appalachian Trail. We have traveled together before many times. Almost as long as I have known the ocean, my mountain cousins have been inviting me out to hike, play, camp, and travel on foot as far as I am able. I even brought some friends from All Saints’ with me last month to visit cousin mountains in Pennsylvania. Just like all introductions, some people were fast friends with my cousins… and other folks were not so sure if they were really kin. Sometimes, it just takes time.
At this moment, as we pack up and prepare to return home, I feel the sadness of leaving my ocean family. I feel the rhythm we have settled into over the week with the pull of the tides and the rise and fall of the day. I also feel the call of our own home in Frederick missing us and hoping we return soon. Our family of pets and garden and neighbors. We are entering into the liminal space of travel, of letting go and moving forward, neither here nor there.
“O God, our Heavenly Creator, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve us as we travel; surround us with your loving care; protect us from every danger; and bring them in safety to our journey’s end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” BCP pg. 831
