souldare

Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. (Psalm 23:6 The Message)

“I dwell in possibility.” (Emily Dickinson)



It’s 2:08am and I can’t sleep. 

I feel like a hermit crab that has outgrown it’s found home, and must move into a bigger sphere lest it die.

Hermit crabs move out into bigger shells in order to grow. 

Later today, we will leave. I will drive the boat south on the ICW, while Les takes the truck and trailer to the boat ramp at Bing’s landing. There we will meet and take this shell of a home out of the water. 

We will drive many miles taking two days to return to our larger shell, and the space will feel foreign, yet familiar.

It will be like waking up in the middle of the night. It will take time to adjust our vision to see anew our home, our space to live and to breathe and to move.

Even before we leave here or arrive there, I know it will be different, yet the same. 

I’m not the same me that left seven weeks ago to embark on this adventure. An adventure that chased us more than we pursued it. An experience of a lifetime, but I think that every time we go towards new and different.

Can I capture this place to bring back with me? I already have. In experience, in photographs, in writings, in artifacts and souvenirs, in my soul, all this has been and will be part of me.

I am like the hermit crab that I found in the inlet.

 At first, I thought that I had picked up a beautiful shell for my collection. As I lifted it out of the water, I noticed movement. Something was living in the shell. I set the shell on the beach willing the crab to leave; I couldn’t bring myself to evacuate the crab from its home.

We watched while the crab struggled to lift its shell to get away from its captors. It managed to turn the shell enough to hide from us. I left in search of empty shells. 

Just before we left the inlet to go back to the marina, I set the shell back in the water. Releasing the hermit crab back into its environment, relieved that I didn’t  steal his home. Before I climbed into the boat, I looked for the shell. The tide had already carried the hermit crab away.

I am ready to leave. The tide will remain constantly ebbing and flowing here. The shoreline will change everyday, and if perchance, we return it will be familiar, yet foreign.