Friday Morning Walk on Fortune Beach

I forget sometimes how privileged I am to have grown up in what is essentially paradise. It all becomes common after spending so many years in the midst of it. Then you go off and become entranced by the novelty of the big city, then even that wares as well. When you return, you are proud to have grown up here and not in some grey, concrete urban center or dusty small town. You've lived amongst true natural beauty.

This past Friday I decided to get some sun on my skin, a kind of preemptive preparation for London's long and dark autumn and winter, by taking a walk on Fortune Beach. This beach in particular holds a very central place in my memory. I've lived near Fortune Beach most of the time I spent living in Grand Bahama. It was where we took family trips to the beach, and where my father and I would come to talk. I walked the shore recall the many conversations I've had and other things that have happened there. If those sands could talk, what stories they would tell...not all of them innocent.

I ended up spending a few hours, found a restaurant to get lunch and sat out for a while thinking about the past and the promise of what's in store for me ahead. I realized that that beach had become a metaphor for my life's journey, the ebb and flow of the tide, the broken piece of glass I cut my foot on, the school of fish that circled my feet and followed me as I waded through the crystalline waters. All things on a my journey I've metaphorically one way or another come across and the realization that just like Fortune Beach my journey, no matter the obstacles and distractions and all else, take in its entirety is breathtaking. #Beautiful