It may have been because I’ve been over thinking everything…or that I’m at a major crossroads in my life. Either way, last weekend at Alki beach, the kelp talked to me.

We were spending our family day in the sunshine, exploring a new part of town. Although the full lunch told us to go home and sleep, the beach song called us to the shore. Rhissa promptly pulled up a spot to lie down, Ryan and Jaime cuddled for warmth while taking in the. cityscape, and mom and I stared at a jumble of kelp floating on the surface of the water.

After several minutes of sitting and watching this clump of kelp I started to hear it’s journey and the parallels it made in my life.

Kelp grows up in a world that isn’t the most stable. They don’t move to better climates, they make the best of their surroundings and “go with the flow.” The kelp spend a good portion of their life sheltering smaller fish and providing nutritients to the ocean. At some point, the kelp are removed from their stable existence and tossed into the great wide ocean. They are required to go in the direction the wave takes them.

Like kelp, my environment has not been the most stable. But what we lacked in stability, we gained in compassion and love, just like the kelp. At graduation I was up rooted and sent in the direction the waves were headed, college. Since then I’ve been a drift, at the mercy of the winds.

My path will change as the season in my life change. Eventually I will anchor again, and my life will be grounded and swaying in the current.

Until then, “anyway the wind blows.”