Sheets of music lost at sea / Words I wasn’t meant to keep / Dreams I cast in oceans deep / Now twirl and swirl around my feet.

In just ninety minutes stolen before work today, Fort Monroe beach gave me some new lines to strum on my ukulele, strong winds literally inspiring the words. I play alone, but rarely remain so.

Three weeks traipsing between jetties, writing songs at sunset, paddleboarding at noon, and a day hasn’t passed without a meaningful exchange with a stranger, typically more than one.  Three songs, penned by the shoreline, buried parts of me finding voice, and I am ever-aware of God’s hand on me.  

A couple of months ago, the incessant cry of my soul was singular, guarded closely with self-effacing humor.  I could identify with Rachel in Genesis begging dramatically, “Give me children, or I die.”  If you asked me, I didn’t really want a future without a family of my own.  

Then, my God-niece, Josie, so impressed me with her new instrument that I had to buy one, too.  My ukulele, Summer Sarah, is the singular best investment I have ever made.  

My friend Mama Sue told me once that anytime you can’t be happy without someone or something, you’ve got an idol problem.  A couple of weeks ago when I first met Ray on the beach, he told me that I needed to get right with God.  

I have never felt so close to God as walking up and down that same strip of shore, day after day and night after night, playing my ukulele.  Chords come.  Words follow.  I glow, singing even the most strained sentiments throw the hint of a smile.  

I spent much of the last decade wondering if I would always be alone.  Our family’s Christmas card would be incomplete until I had a partner and children to balance it out.  Four children, but just three families.  What was so wrong with me that it was never my turn?  

But give me enough perfect days strung together at Fort Monroe beach with Summer Sarah, and I’m happy.  I really can’t say that I’m alone, either, because once I started focusing on creating something beautiful that began with me, I saw the vast sea of companions I’d had all along.  At best, I’m alone-adjacent.  

I serenade upon request, trying to match the song with the person asking.  People like taking photos with me or of me, and I still never remember to think about my wrinkles or belly fat.  One night, a group of women from different churches in Hampton Roads met on the beach in a circle of chairs.  They asked me to play them a tune, and I shared my first original, my prayer. 

I’m just a beginner on that instrument, but God steadied my nerves. They were kind and grateful, and I was able to add my own testimony, citing that the group of women themselves were examples of how the Lord had given me “more than music for my company” like in the chorus.  

Someone recorded me playing in a video sending prayers to Maui in the aftermath of the raging wildfires.  One couple just back from their honeymoon said they wished they’d had me to serenade them on their trip.  Another woman told me that Jesus was in my music, and that I was stubborn, but that this was my time.  A man alone after 42 years married prayed God would bless me with a husband.

Had these people been there all decade long?  

At some point on Saturday with Rob and friends I’ve made there at the beach, a thought struck me, as profound as the heat wave this weekend. 

Why did I think that all good things you got were supposed to be kept forever?  

Hear me out.  I’ll try and unpack this.  You get a husband and a job.  You get a house.  You have kids.  You do it all in the same place, build it all up, this lasting picture, an estate where all you have and love lives until you die.  

Maybe because that’s what my mother did?  I really don’t know.  But I didn’t get a permanent anything… and yet, I’ve had so many wonderful, temporary, in-betweens.  I couldn’t even see them, seething with personal resentment and indirect temper-tantrums that my life didn’t look like I thought it would look.  

And on Saturday, the words to a song Mrs. Quackenbush had us sing in high school chorus came squarely into my brain.  “Diamond waves through sunglass days go by.  So beautiful to be here and alive.”  I had to search the line to find the song, “Feel Us Shaking” by The Samples.  I can’t not smile when I’m playing my ukulele on the Chesapeake Bay.  

For the first time in years, I’m here and alive in the moment I’m in, and it is so beautiful.  In trying to force forever onto the things that I valued, I failed to see the blessed gifts that were, perhaps, only meant for a season.  It is also why I defaulted to holding on so tightly that things slipped through my fingers, always grasping at “the rest of my life” and trying to collect what I deemed necessary for a life well lived.  

Feet plastered in sand, I walk the beach, but I swear that God above orders my steps.  Every day, I meet people hungry to be heard, and somehow in listening to me, they wind up being known.  I am never, ever alone.  I don’t think I ever have been.  

I was so blinded by my forever-family-idol I didn’t see what a rich family network I already had.

Yesterday, I took a break from the beach to hit Water Country with Mary Beth and her girls, Josie and Ginny, and my brother’s whole crew.  Katarina’s foot hurt, so I carried her on piggy back through the park for a good part of the afternoon.

It gave us time to talk and share secrets.  At nine, she’s heavier than I remember, and bursting with personality out of every orifice.  She asked if she could tell me anything.  “Precious girl, you can tell me anything until the day I die.  I will never love you less. I will always listen. You’re not alone.”  

I think I know where the words came from.  God’s been speaking the same words to me in the changing colors of every sunset.

When I put Kat down, she said she could walk on her own for a while, figuring the rest had helped.  It was soon time to leave, and she started to whine, fighting departure.  The sight was suddenly so personal and familiar to me.  

So, I told Katarina that not all good things last forever.  They’re not supposed to.  When we complain when they end, it just tarnishes the end of the memory we get to take with us.  

“That makes sense!” And with that, her smile was restored.  

It does make sense.  The sunrise and sunset, paired in every day, are never the same again, but I don’t grieve the setting sun for its lack of permanence.  No, His mercies are new every morning, and I never lack for love.