wine on the beach

“Did you hear that? …a seal!” I excitedly turned to Laura. We were lying on a blanket on the sandy shore just outside our apartment. Puget Sound shushed the city into night; the only proof that the city was even there was that when we turned around, the Space Needle shone green in the skyline.

We had been at our apartment for a week—our first full week. We celebrated with wine on the beach, our beach, as we like to say.

We watched the sky melt from blue to orange to red to deep deep blue and black, sinking behind snow-topped mountains across the salty bay. The evening was unusually warm and clear. Soon, stars began to speckle above us. Seattle is slowly beginning to feel more and more like home.

We laughed at nothing for almost an hour straight. We still cannot believe that we have been so blessed to stumble into this new and wonderful life.

When we finally got chills, we walked back to the apartment, trailing ourselves with sandy steps. We made dinner at our new little table—an end-table that we found at Goodwill for $4. It was the perfect addition to our “zen-living” apartment.

Wine and soup set, candles lit, and our bums softly cushioned on our pillows on the floor, we looked at each other. Neither picked up a spoon or even sipped the wine. We laughed again, and it finally struck me.

“I have never really been one for praying before meals, but I just really feel like we need to. I am so grateful and just happy and just…grateful.”

So we did. If I could write god a big THANK-YOU card, I would.

We’re still floating, caught in this surreal life. A pulsing shore, a laughing, distant seal, a city skyline always within sight—I have never experienced life so near to these things yet so far from the world I once knew.