Greetings. I wrote this little ditty awhile back and never hit the Post button. Here goes:

May 7, 2017    Clearwater Beach, Florida

BF opened the black-out curtains of our eighth floor, beach-view room at the Clearwater Hilton to reveal gray clouds. And high winds. And a deserted beach. Most of my life, a blustery day at the beach would have set me firmly down the path of miserable-pitiful. Not anymore.

Instead, I stayed wrapped in the covers and sipped tea until BF left for his 8:00 conference meeting. One Western omelet later, I was headed down the shoreline bundled in a sweatshirt, relishing high tide, soft sand, and solitude. That’s when my Serendipity Angels stopped by for a quick visit in the form of a 50-something, progressive thinking, like-minded woman.

If two souls can recognize one another in passing, that’s what happened. It was as if my heart whispered, “Talk to her, you’ll like her.” I threw my arms out toward the choppy ocean, looked up at the gray sky, and said, “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yes!” she agreed, matching my enthusiasm. Wind whipping our hair, we stood, waves lapping our ankles, sharing twin epiphanies regarding our ability to celebrate beach power—even in inclement weather. It was her last day and she was grateful to allow the wind to blow her cares away. We talked of the joy of trading a bikini-worthy body for experience and wisdom. The seeking of adventure rather than a tan. We shared our plans and dreams, and the sheer joy of approaching the next decade as an opportunity to grow and learn rather than as a time to obsess over what’s lost. The sheer excitement of freedom—the future. Promise. Do we expect all sunny skies? Now, that would be ironic, wouldn’t it?

We were two women who stopped to chat on the beach, who in a few days would return to our respective homes two thousand miles from one another, who bonded over a shared philosophy regarding our primary purpose on this earth: to discover joy and share it. We traded email addresses and hugs and were on our separate ways.

Don’t know if I’ll ever hear from her again, but as I walked away, I looked out over the choppy Gulf and said simply, “Thank you Angels.”