Be still, my beating heart.

Bea met the Columbia River today.

She took me by surprise when we approached the glistening, wavy water. We still haven't taken her swimming and when she met the Pacific Ocean she was only three months old, nestled in a sling unaware of it's grand introduction into her life so I wasn't sure what to expect. Our girl ran right up to this big river and made herself at home. It was a beautiful sight. I wish Kenny were there to see it. Don't worry, I sent him a picture through text message and she asked for dadda and I told her we'd all come back to play in the water. She walked right up to her waist and splashed and laughed and I got to thinking about how important these big bodies of water are.

I wasn't born in Maine and I didn't even spend my whole childhood there but I spent my happiest days there, as a child and young woman. I say I am from Maine because of this. Before that my family life was tumultuous and frightening. Maine was a place of safety and acceptance and part of growing up in Portland Maine is growing up right on top of the Atlantic Ocean, an ocean I am so very anxious to introduce Bea to. It's one I played in with my siblings, my cousins and friends until I was blue all over. We swam with seaweed tickling our legs and wave bubbles and bobbed as deep as we could, pretty fearless. We ran up to the shore and back again to ride the tame waves. The beaches we walked to and sometimes drove to, had pink roses and hot wooden slats to cross before the sand and salt. If you walk along the shore for long enough, you will often find huge, climbable rocks with tide pools baking in the sun, waiting with their critters and oh what an adventure it was climbing those rocks.

I remember feeling slightly sunburned most of the summer, salt dried on my face in white streaks, my long hair clumping like dread locks and sleeping hard and deep after a beach day. Don't you love those memories of being a child, playing all day for so long, with all of your might that when you hit the bed you just melted, careless and dead to the world? Those beach days were like that. Those ocean memories are important to me. Bea will have Pacific and Atlantic Ocean memories, I am sure of it. It seems to me some rivers and lakes aught to be added to the list as well; Columbia, check.

Thank you child for playing in the river with me today. I love remembering how special these giant bodies of water are to such little creatures like us.