Finding the places that hold you

A lot of people love the beach. 

I grew up near the coast and I can definitely relate: there's certainly a lot to love.

Crisp ocean air. 
Crashing waves and expansive views of the horizon. 
Soothing sand and refreshing water.
And so many amazing creatures to observe, especially at low tide.

Starfish. Sea anemones. Mussels. Jellyfish.

Orange starfish ‘hugging’ an anenome

Starfish and mussels hugging the rock at Cannon Beach

Purple starfish ‘hanging’ out…

It's a bird lover's paradise, with seagulls and puffins and sandpipers. And beautiful opportunities to ogle at the magnificent mammals. Whales. dolphins. otters. seals. 

It sounds like a kids book, I know. 

A few weeks ago, however, during a visit to the coast, it hit me: I don't really love the beach like a lot of people do. 

Granted, my mood was pretty challenged during that visit, having just learned that my dad was in hospice. That difficult news, combined with disruptive hormonal changes, left me feeling pretty raw and unpleasant.

The air felt sticky. 
The wind felt annoying. 
The sand felt deeply distracting. 

I wanted to love it. I tried. 
We walked and explored. We chatted. 
We watched the waves, and listened to the gulls, and smiled at the dogs and kids and surfers splashing in the summer sun.

But I couldn't force it. Joy felt vacant.

So, as much as I wished to be elsewhere, in a place that better matched my mood, I worked to accept the unpleasant reality of my circumstances: sometimes things feel hard and we don't like where we find ourselves.

Ready for some alone time, I climbed on the boulder at the end of Tunnel Beach and found myself a front row seat. Suddenly surrounded by tumultuous waters and ocean boulders, I felt like I had the place to myself. 


The boulder beneath me felt deeply grounding, and the pounding of the ocean felt thoroughly validating. 
Intense crashing of white caps. 
Thrashing of waves in every direction. 
Natural chaos and nothing wrong with everything right in its natural order.

My mood began to shift and my breathing deepened. I felt like I could stay there forever, feeling that force of nature, that feeling of being small and beautifully insignificant.

(unmute video for the fuller experience)

While the beach isn't generally my go-to spot, there are places with conditions that help me hold the heavy. For me, it's often the river, in the mountains or high desert. Landscapes with that same rocky flavor, that same powerful flow of water pushing past stone.

I'm curious about your place. Maybe it's also those boulders in tumultuous waters. Or perhaps somewhere more calm or quiet. But I'd encourage you to consider those natural places that you love and notice how you feel there. What does your body tell you when you're there? How does this place tap you into what matters?

(And If it happens to be the high desert river landscape or you're ready to check out a new place, come join us on the Deschutes in mid Sept 2026 - we have a few spots left and we’d love to have you!)

That's the throughline. Not the beach or the desert or any one place necessarily. But finding those places that can hold our mood, that can support our process of noticing and accepting ourselves and our experiences exactly as they are without the need, even for just a few moments, to change things. Allowing the chaos of the crashing waves, trusting the tide will change.

Because it does. Everything ebbs and flows, like seasons and tides and eroding rock.
Grief comes and goes, it hits in waves. Tears and laughter. Grief and joy.

And I think that's the real question:
not which place is beautiful - though that's part of it - but which place allows us be both at once, and lets that be enough?