sea dreaming - Shauna Niequist

I am currently reading Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. This is the sequel to Cold Tangerines. I recommend everyone run out and buy these books. Niequist inspires me in her honesty. She says things I often think, yet rarely say. She is also hilarious and very witty. Great writing. Here's an excerpt from one of the short stories I read last night called "Sea Dreaming." This is about Niequist's trip to Fiji with her husband. They went there to meet her brother and his best friend, who were on a year-long sailing trip around the world.

The conversation felt as fresh and possible as the wind blowing in off the lagoon. That's why travel is so important, among other reasons: to get far enough away from our everyday lives to see those lives with new clarity. When you're literally on the other side of the world, when you're under the silent sea, watching a bright, silent world of fish and coral, when you're staring up at a sky so bright and dense with stars it makes you gasp, it's in those moments that you begin to see the fullness of your life, that possibility that still prevails, that always prevails. 

You certainly don't have to be on the other side of the world, but you do have to get out of those same four walls you're always staring at. Drive to the city, or to the country, or to a lake whose shores are totally unfamiliar to you. Listen for the new rhythms and sounds, and watch your life refract and shift against a new backdrop. You'll see things you didn't know were there, and recognize selves long hidden. Sometimes a totally new sense of possibility is found practically in your own backyard, viewed for the first time from an entirely new vantage point. 

...that night, with my husband and my brother and my dear friend, I dreamed. And it could have been the beauty of the moon on the water, or it could have been the freshness of the sea air, but when I returned home, I felt new and that the world was bright and new, and I heard God's voice whispering to me everywhere I went...

I think this is why Paris was such a powerful experience this summer. I was far enough away to reflect on my own life to see it more accurately: the things I'm passionate about, the people I love, the lives I admire. I was constantly dreaming in Paris, yet here, in the business I don't look at every detail as I did walking by l'hotel de ville or the colors on rue moufftard. 

Finals are nearly over, and I plan on dreaming a lot this Christmas..