Pismo Beach

Pismo Beach  - I'd call it a must stop if you're traveling through California anywhere nearby. It's on the edge of an adorable little beach town that I didn't have the stamina to explore. I'm still healing, and my energy gets used in only the most important places - like on the sand and in the water. Not IN the water, but my feet in the water.

But I DID have the stamina to spend a couple of hours with my family on the beach, letting the gentle waves caress our feet, watching Muffins running in and out of the water, laughing and allowing the healing that the ocean and sand provide. A true gift. 

Muffins loves the water and the ocean so much that as soon as she smelled the sea air she started crying to get out of the car -  while we were still moving and nowhere near the parking lot. She was ready to go!

Muffins, my husband and my son play a game where they chase the waves as they wash out, then run away as they wash in. Muffins usually doesn't go in beyond the depth of her legs, but this time she felt bold and went in all the way past her belly, to 
where the water was halfway up her sides before she decided to run back onto land. It was hilarious to watch, and she had us laughing SO hard.

She was also particularly interested in those birds. 

Laughing! Now even there is something I had done so rarely in my life with chronic illness, if ever. It's not easy to laugh when a person is in so much pain that it's all they can do to breathe, or when they're so exhausted that they can't see straight.

And here I was, laughing joyfully. Happythankyoumoreplease! This day, this beach, so much healing, so much life. 

So much life! The bird life was abundant at the beach. I don't know them all but we saw plovers, gulls, pigeons, pelicans, hawks....and those are just the ones I was able to recognize.

I think these birds are western snowy plovers. I'm no bird expert but I sure am fascinated by them. Birds have such grace and personality, and they are so funny to watch sometimes. 

These little guys would run in as the tide washed out and start eating something - brine shrimp or brine fly larvae perhaps. Something too small for us to see, but clearly a delicious treat for them. It was like a meditation watching them over and over as the tide washed in and out.

The pier against the sky. What contrast! There were so many beautiful visuals here. And apparently the water gets pretty high at times, we just lucked out with a lower tide day.

The water made these ripples in the sand. The sand itself was so fine it felt velvety on our feet rather than sand-papery. This beach just made me want to live here.

After a couple of hours (on my feet the whole time, go me!) we decided it was time to go, so I climbed the stiars to the pier to sit on the bench with Muffins while my guys enjoyed swinging on the beach.

So to recap: I spent almost two hole hours on my feet in the sand and water, and I don't remember it hurting until the end - whoa! That is unheard of for me. Then I walked UP THE STAIRS of the pier to sit on a bench to recover a bit - pretty impressive after already being on my feet all that time!

 Now, I'm not saying that it will only get better every day from here on in, because let's face it - flares happen. My body still has a great deal of healing to do from the onslaught of viruses it's been carrying around all its life, and the damage they have done. My liver has a lot of cleansing and healing to do yet. And that's okay with me. 

I know I AM healing now, finally, after years of seeking answers. I see the difference and how each outing shows me that I AM moving forward, I do keep improving, and sometimes I am blown away at what I can do now. Things I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do again. It feels amazing.Talking with a dear friend tonight I realized that when I was first on this healing path, trying the Medical Medium recommendations, if a flare would happen sometimes I'd get that panicky feeling like, "No, it's not working, it's all coming back, nothing can heal this." It would terrify me to have a flare of my symptoms or feel more pain or even have a day of grumpiness from not enough sleep.

But I'm noticing now that it doesn't scare me anymore, because it's a part of the process, and I really KNOW that I am healing, and if I just do the things I need to do to keep that going, it will keep happening. And that's pretty amazing in and of itself.

I had been watching the hawks soaring over the beach, just gliding, circling, flowing so gracefully back and forth. I have been thrilled be the sheer number of raptors I've seen in the skies everywhere we've been in California - I think hawk must be one of my spirit animals, because I have been so completely drawn to them these last few years. I really wanted to get a good photo, but my lens isn't very long, and I didn't know if I could. 

As we were leaving, however, the hawk must have heard my wishes, because it literally flew right above our heads, over the pier we were walking down, and I took as many photos as my camera would allow as it flew over. I could have cried with joy. So close! I was actually calling out thanks to the hawk as it flew overhead and I was clicking away.

I'm not exactly sure the type of hawk - I tried to look it up and maybe it's a Ferruginous Hawk? If you know more about birds than I do (likely), and know what kind this is, please educate me, I really want to know!