There is no place like home…
I wait, I write, and I wait some more. There seems to be a lot of waiting in this writing game. Waiting for what, you wonder? Book reviews, I suppose. And maybe some sales reports, too—whatever is supposed to happen after launching Evolving Elizah: Initiatum on December 1. Do I even know why I wait? I toy with the possibility that I’m not actually waiting, but perhaps instead just wanting things to move faster, even though it’s all unfolding just fine.
Full moon rising over the Gulf of Mexico 
Cristo de los Pescadores at Isla Blanca 
Sunset on the Laguna Madre
This is a way of being I know well—yearning to move faster, even when life becomes a blur. My heart is reluctant to race to the finish line, but my mind struggles forward, pushing harder and faster. Perhaps this is why I need to be here on South Padre Island—to learn how to slow my roll. I am trying. I try, I learn, and then I try again.
We are all moving. Even the ocean is in motion, and this is what I tell Crash as the tide steals away the shells he chases in the surf. But as the moon and the waves crescendo to a velocity that makes my head spin, I am reminded that everything comes in degrees, even in this magical place connected to the rest of the world by the Queen Isabella Causeway. Sometimes more can be overwhelming.
I first visited South Padre Island as a child, but I was so young that all I have are wispy memories of sand and surf. Besides, that was over 40 years ago—I doubt it is the same place even if I could remember with perfect clarity. And so I felt like I was seeing it for the first time when I drove across the 2-mile causeway two short months ago. The profoundly healing beauty of the Laguna Madre—the Mother Lagoon—birthed new life in me as I crossed to the other side.
As I struggle with my “waiting,” the island teaches me that the most magnificent sights can be seen by standing still. The sun goes up, and then it goes down. It commands witnesses, and I stand still to answer the call. The moon dances around the sky, waltzing amongst the stars. I quiet my mind and hear the perfect trinity of beats in each measure, the universe steadily keeping time as the veil dissolves between surf and sand. The water rushes in to find me, lapping around my feet and my knees, and then it recedes, luring me further into its depths—a siren’s song asking me to stay, beckoning me to make this place home.
But what makes a home? Is it the people? Is it the land? Is it merely a dream of a dream? Is it love? I don’t know. I have come to love this place, and yet, it’s not my home—it’s my teacher, and I still have lessons to learn.