I live in the ocean of awareness, as we all do. But we live there AS the ocean of awareness! Needless to say, we are full of crabs, tiger sharks and whales, as well as grains of sand and droplets of water. We are intensely busy doing nothing and that’s something!

We bump into deserted cargo ships and wee baby octopi. We shriek in horror and giggle in glee. We are so….so…everything and yet we are all wet.

I am having a mini-breakdown at the beginning of my eighties. Too many storms and not enough luaus! Too little fuss and not enough fun.

How long have you been reading my essays as I cross the Sea of Beingness? I have written thousands upon thousands. My two books are delicious, aren’t they? Both were allowing me to exist in troubled waters without ever meeting any of you except via the printed word.

I am a hermit crab and luxuriate in isolation. But I know the depths of the ocean like the palm of my hand. Like sand in my bathing suit. Like saltwater taffy without the taffy. I am a survivor.

My essays are droplets of the ocean. Meaningful yet void of permanence. There is no such thing as permanence, yet that is what human beings seek.

My words are grim and terrible and sometimes funny. I am a tiger shark…grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Just kidding. I am all of it and none of it. Makes me seasick.

Vicki Woodyard