There are synchronous themes that weave through your life and the sea has always drawn me. From California to Morocco to Crete to Portugal. The tidal patterns flowing in me seek continuous connection to the tides of the sea.

At the end of 2016, after being pummeled ruthlessly by challenging work and dating situations created by my own neediness and lack of self-worth and capacity to cope, I felt a need to be still and quiet and alone, connecting to something I loved. My friend Isa told me that the way you enter the new year sows the seed for what you want to cultivate during that next year. How much I needed to nurture tranquility, wholeness, peace and beauty in my soul.

Those rising tides in me called out to the sea.

I have an undeniable connection to Costa Vicentina and its sea. It’s a love affair that, yes, began at first sight when I did a road trip there with a boyfriend somewhere around 2010. Holiday trips with other friends later on, eventually turned into solitary trips which continue to this day. Trips back “home” – a home for my heart, where my soul has regularly gone seeking solitude and oneness with the pulsating flow of nature.

So at the close of the year I went to the coast in hopes of starting 2017 in a way that would set the tone for the whole new year, cleansing my being of the chaos of the previous months.

I journaled on arrival:
It’s hard to explain what I get from this place. As soon as I arrived I was smiling and simply couldn’t stop. Just an energy thing. Good vibrations. A message of “Welcome home. I’m still here doing my thing. Come and see.” And my heart expands 10 times and my breathing encompasses absolutely everything…

So much peace here. The smell, the sights, the feeling. It’s all healing. Sleeping to the sound of silence… waking up to the sound of silence. And then the sea, right there waiting. Incredible.

I’m walking along the coast and stopping every now and again to look, smell, listen, feel. And then I sense that thing inside me that says, “Come on, move on” – to find that beach they were talking about last night. And then I realized: but getting there doesn’t actually matter! What matters is the “along the way” – appreciating it, feeling it, sensing it in every way possible. Because that’s where life is lived. The here and now. The path. The moving along. The arrival is never guaranteed. Only the here and now.

This journey to my seaside soul home included the debut of what is now my tradition of swimming in the sea on the first of January, welcoming the new year in with a feeling of being so very alive and bigger than what my skin can hold, and this incredible moment invigorated and inspired me to write one of my first more vulnerable posts on Instagram, sharing feelings from deep inside me with the outside world.

This, I believe, was the beginning of finding something that would help to unblock me little by little over the next years – both the solitary trips to the sea and the pouring outwards of feelings and ideas that were bubbling up inwards.

Como se explica este sentimento. Apaixonada? Sem dúvida. Mas mais que isso. Faço parte disto e isto faz parte de mim. É a sensação de me abrir e perceber que sou maior do que pensava e que tudo isto cabe lá dentro e enche-me, surpreende-me, aceita-me, alegra-me, faz-me chorar dum sentimento indescritível, abraça-me, fortalece-me, fala-me, ama-me, desafia-me, mostra-me quem sou e quem eu quero verdadeiramente ser. Tudo isto num sítio só. Não há palavras em nenhuma língua que descreva aquilo que sinto quando venho cá com o coração aberto e saio de cá, inteira e com experiências que nunca imaginava. Magia. Puro e simplesmente magia. Na sua forma mais poderosa e directa. Este pedaço do mar chama-me e eu vou. E nunca fico desiludida. Fico com a alma cheia e mais eu do que nunca. Amo-te muito e quero-te sempre. E nunca estamos longe um do outro. Levo-te no meu coração seja onde for. ❤️

How do you explain this feeling? In love? Without a doubt. But it’s more than that. I’m part of this and this is part of me. It’s a sensation of opening myself and understanding that I’m bigger than I thought and all of this fits inside of me and fills me, surprises me, accepts me, gives me joy, makes me cry from an indescribable feeling, hugs me, strengthens me, speaks to me, loves me, challenges me, shows me who I am and who I truly want to be. All of this in just one place. There are no words in any language to describe what I feel when I come here with my heart open and I leave here whole and with experiences that I never imagined. Magic. Pure and simply magic. In its most powerful and direct form. This piece of sea calls to me and I go. And I’m never disappointed. I end up with my soul full and more myself than ever. I love you and I always want you. And we’re never far from one another. I take you in my heart wherever I go.

(Instagram post • January 1, 2017 • Costa Vicentina)