I Am

I am walking in sun-soaked sand,

And swimming in sparkling azure water.

I am a winter-weary traveler

Greedily, hungrily absorbing my glorious surroundings.

I fleetingly think of my beautiful home.

But I am not there…

I am here.

I feel the gentle massage of the crystalline sand

Reminding me of  the other beaches I have walked upon

 And the wonderful people we met and shared time with there.

And for many moments I am elsewhere,

But I am not…

I am in this moment.

As I am poolside watching mothers, fathers and children playing,

I too am a mother with children laughing and playing just the same.

I can plainly see my own children before my mind’s eye,

I am lost in reverie and young.

But I am not…

I am older.

But then I realize,

It is wrong of me to say I am not this or that or there

For I am…

Everything

that has gone before.

I encompass and hold everything I was

To be…

Who I am

And more.

I am not rooted to a moment

Or location

 Or defined by age

Or fixed in the construct of time.

And as I live and love and walk and breathe

Through tragedy and triumph,

In the mundane and the magical

 I greedily embrace it all and absorb my surroundings for…

 I am alive.

Everything that I am awake to now;

Joy and sorrow, love and beauty and God

I take in with hungry eyes and heart and soul for…

I am spirit.

Everything that is to come…

I am becoming.

Until I am at one with…

I am.

*I wrote this sitting on the beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic in 2022 during our first vacation since the pandemic. The picture is of my view as I wrote these reflections.