A while ago, I was down the coast and took the dogs for a walk on an isolated beach. This beach has signs up that tell you “no dogs off leash”, but, due to the beach’s remote location, it happened to be completely free of other people or dogs. I’m guessing 9 out of 10 people would have taken the leads off their dogs and let them run free. I, on the other hand, whilst I consider myself to be a reformed people-pleaser (progress over perfection and all that), I remain a die-hard rule-follower. Don’t ask me why, but I can’t shake the idea that if one person starts to assume it’s a personal decision how to apply communal rules, we’ve all entered a slippery slope that falls (albeit slowly) towards anarchy.
OK, so that’s potentially a tad dramatic… but I feel the feels I’m feeling.
Anyway – the point is, I left the leads on my dogs, BUT (oops!) I let go of my end of the leads. Now the dogs could run free on the empty beach, dragging their leads behind them, and I could feel like I was still positioned closer to the moral high-ground of the slippery slope.
As the dogs started running across the beach, I noticed that they were the Yin and Yang of dog personalities. Red Dog (a 13-year-old fella) was happy to run into the water, whilst 11-year-old Little Lady picked up her lead to keep it dry, and fussed when the water reached her feet! I also noted the amazing patterns they were making in the sand; the way their leads crossed paths, how one dog rolls around to make circles in the sand and the other digs star-shapes. The patterns made me smile, so I took a couple of photos on my phone.
Further down the beach I came across a sandcastle.
Now, time for another truth bomb: I LOVE MAKING SANDCASTLES.
And so does my dad. Ever since I was a kid, I loved making towers and moats and walls with him, and watching things grow taller, taller, taller, then sludgy-slump away if the consistency was wrong or we went too high. I even vaguely remember my father winning a sandcastle competition when I was little, and when he was interviewed for TV about his secret to success, he accidentally said something like, “I just dig the dirt out of the hole then pile it up high”… not the most glorious 15 seconds of fame (love ya Dad!).
When I had kids of my own, I can’t count how many times I was still in a hole digging-and-piling, long after my kids had lost interest and run off, leaving me all alone to position seashell and seaweed decorations on my castle.
Anyway – the point is (de-ja-vu), I love sandcastles, and I recognize a decent one when I see it. And here on the beach was one high enough away from the tide to survive the night, so points for that. It also had all the necessary ingredients of towers and walls, basic, but present. Points lost for the lack of a moat or decorations, but points gained for texture.
What suddenly occurred to me as I was trying to take a photograph of the sandcastle, is that the only reason I could make it out was because of the shadows. A sandcastle is just sand piled on sand set against a backdrop of more sand. If it wasn’t for the presence of the sun throwing a shadow, the castle… would… dis… appear…
There are many quotes about the night being darkest before dawn, or how you light a candle to clear a space in the darkness. Darkness can be a necessary evil, or it can save the day. Darkness CAN be a good thing.
Without the darkness I wouldn’t have recognized the joy.
Without illness, I would not have learnt to appreciate wellness.
Irrationally excited about this newfound admiration for the dark-side I started taking more photos of the shoreline… over and over, patterns formed in the sand that were made marvelous by the presence of light AND dark. It was from the shadows that I could see that the beach had been shared by others before me, and that waves can turn sand into feathery-forms or mini-mountains, ripples and ridges…
Perhaps this is not the most profound post in the world, but in my world, mindfulness encourages you to pay attention to your life lived in the moment, making room for an appreciation of everything from dogs, sandcastles, sunshine, shadows, illness, wellness, ripples and ridges…
Take care, mindfully, Linda x
The Mindful Migraine 
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