Bridges

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Queens, NY

There are some moments of life that serve as bridges from one part to the next. They connect two seemingly unlike parts together, regardless if the passage between the two is narrow and shallow, or deep and wide.

In the moments as I fall asleep, I attempt to orient my thoughts to the same thing, night after night. It allows for my mind to simplify itself and quiet down. I’ve had to find a new thought as of late, and the choices are plentiful. What is it that I will choose to remember, to think of in the last waning moments before I slip into uncontrolled consciousness? The last few nights the choice has been coming back to the beach.

Sand. Water. Ocean. Sun. Warmth. All things that most people enjoy and might even say is rather trite as a focused thought to calm before sleep. Yet, for me, there’s a deeper meaning in this thought, one I didn’t really recognize until last night.

On August 1st, John and I went to the beach for the first time since we moved here in early July. We took the subway out, which was a grand opportunity in itself—to be able to go to the beach by subway in only an hour trip! We had packed lunches and aimed to get out there earlier to beat any crowds a Monday might bring. The subway ride was interesting in itself. It starts underground, which is to be expected here, but after several minutes, it climbs above ground. For a couple of minutes, the cityscape is relatively the same here as the rest of Brooklyn, but then it begins to change. Parking lots outside McDonalds and grocery stores begin to appear. There are less people outside and seems to be an air of calm. A couple of more minutes on the subway go by, and it changes still. Now we see the beginnings of a “small” eastern coast waterfront town, clapboard houses with white trim and sea hues on their bodies. There are backyards and boat slips, connected to a snaking stream that leads to a bay. And suddenly, the bay appears. Ironically so, it’s a wildlife refuge…one breathtakingly beautiful and can transport you to a different world, if you can ignore JFK airport and its hoard of planes on land and in sky on your left. There are so many birds here. Cranes, especially. We travel across the bay for several minutes on a narrow bridge meant just for the subway, surrounded by water the entire time. Sigh. After a quick transfer to another subway shuttle, we take the ride the rest of the way to Rockaway Beach, a narrow yet long peninsula home to over 100 blocks of public sandy waterfront. We leave the train and descend down stairs, then our legs perform a sequence of steps amounting to about 200 yards until we are on the sand…once again.

It’s familiar. We (more so me), spent much time at the beach while living in San Luis Obispo, CA. The choices of beaches there were plentiful…four completely different ones within 15 miles of one another. I had my own favorites each year, but I specifically remember going to Avila Beach just about every week by myself during my last quarter in SLO. It was a time of respite, reflection, and relaxation for me. It had become so much a part of my home and life in the five years of San Luis Obispo that I wanted to take the remaining chances I could to enjoy it before John and I moved away. And there are so many memories…

In September of 2005—my first weekend of freshman year of college—I went to the beach with a bunch of people from my dorms, rounded up by our Campus Crusade staff member who decided we should go hang out at the beach. There was a girl down the hall from me who was also from Colorado, and we had been connecting. We decided to rent surfboards and wetsuits to attempt surfing for the first time in California. We picked them up that day and put them in her open air Jeep, myself in the back seat to hold them down as we drove there. It was warm and sunny in San Luis Obispo at the time, but the course of thedrive revealed fog down at the ocean by Pismo Beach. I remember those moments to myself…thinking of how different this was than anything I had ever done before, and how different this place was than anywhere I had been. With it though, came an honest and unbridled joy for what I was about to experience, though I had no clue what it would be. What would that day bring? What would that year bring? What would life bring?

We arrived and met up with the group. The staff member and two other guys joined us in the surfing; the other girls and guys remained on the beach. Amy and I attempted surfing for about an hour and a half before we were exhausted and headed back to shore. We joined the group to go to the legendary Splash Café up the street to grab lunch. Later, back down on our towels on the sand and enjoying our food, I remember interacting with the guy from Colorado I was beginning to get to know. I remember looking at him in that moment and thinking that my life was going to be different with him now in it. He was full of joy, a little crazy and overenthusiastic, but contagious nonetheless. Our group spent much of the day there before we went back to our dorm and back into the beginning of “beginning-adult” or college life that we were learning to navigate.

As I sat on the beach on August 1st of 2011, I looked at this calm man beside me, wearing very few lines of childhood on his face, and I remembered the overenthusiastic, contagious, joyful young man he was then. Now, he is my husband, and I his wife, almost six years later.

Unlike the Pacific Coast I resided upon where the waters were almost always too cold to go into, this Atlantic water was the perfecttemperature. Therefore, I went out and swam a bit. I jumped the waves, remembering the unbridled joy as a child I had in doing so, and then arched my back as I trusted the dense seawater to hold me afloat. Ebb and flow. I was one with the water and the water with me…and in those moments I was reassured beyond all doubt that the Lord knows every part of me and my heart, for I couldn’t imagine much better than floating in the warm ocean in the presence of the Lord with my husband on shore watching me. In those moments, I knew we are exactly where we are supposed to be now.

And so the beach is the bridge. The beach connects me to the beginning of my college and independent life, and the beginning of self-sufficient married life. There are so many similarities in feelings and thoughts… the bridge possesses an honest and unbridled joy for what I did and will experience, remembering what was and not knowing fully what the futurewould be, what would that day, year, and ultimately, life bring.

In moments here in New York City, I feel so young all over again. I feel overwhelmed at the prospect of my entire life before me. But, I look back to the other side of the bridge and remember who I was then and see what six years has brought. I remember that six years ago, I had no idea where I would be now, but that bridge has been built and now I see. That’s the intermediate context I have for now. It’s a six-year bridge of the beach that connects then to now. There’s another bridge to be built from here; I know, and that’s all I know. It’s okay to be beginning again. The bridges are built beautifully with the care of the Lord and the passage of time.