Delta Beach

The other day, Mike, Sara and I went on a driftwood-hunting expedition to Delta Beach, a 15 minute drive north of Portage la Prairie, along the southern edge of Lake Manitoba. It had been a number of years since we had last been there, long ago enough that Sara couldn't remember having been there at all. Mike remembered being there on a field trip in grade one and on church excursions but what we both remarked on was how different it looked. How beautiful and peaceful and clean it was.

We hadn't been there at all since the floods of 2011 when Lake Manitoba outgrew itself to engulf beach cottages and farmers' fields and roads, and before that, we remembered Delta as a basically untended destination, not well-maintained, overgrown, dirty. Evidently, a lot had happened since then.

The beach was pristine, only full of gorgeous soft, clean sand and stripped, overturned trees turned white from staying under water and sun so long – no garbage to be seen anywhere. Birds of all kinds were in the air: sea gulls, Canada geese, a hawk, a pelican, sand pipers. There were a few people but not many. We strolled down the beach and waded through the warm shallow water for what felt like miles and were only greeted with beauty and the mesmerizing sound of lapping waves. It was the Delta beach it had always been, only better.

We came away with the necessary driftwood, many photos and a collection of feathers and seashells. We weren't there long but we all had a wonderful time and vowed to come again.

That's what I'd like for myself, at the beginning of this “new year” - to be myself, only becoming a better, improved version. Clearly altered by the past but fitter, wiser, more creative, more disciplined, more comfortable in my own skin, more accepting of others in theirs'.

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.”
― Aldous Huxley

“Make the most of yourself....for that is all there is of you.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson