Longshore Drift -- the process whereby beach material is gradually shifted laterally as a result of waves meeting the shore at an oblique angle.
Patty and I made our first visit to Spencer Spit State Park in January of 1990, just 2 months before our wedding. We set up camp and rode our bikes all over Lopez Island, eventually purchasing property that became home base for the first half of our marriage, so far. Last summer, we returned to Spencer Spit, now with our two adult sons and their wives, and a granddaughter on the way.
Coming back to this anchor in our lives brought a flood of memories. 30 years ago we were setting out upon our lives' adventures. A few months earlier, we had finished a classic hiking journey, circumnavigating Mount
Rainier together on the Wonderland Trail. A few months later, we poured the foundation of our log home on the island, initiating a learn-as-you-go construction project that lasted nearly until our first son Nicholas was born
five years later (aaaandd.... some finish work that didn't get done for ten more years after that! ). Our younger son, Mikah, arrived two years later and both boys grew up playing in the woods and on the beaches, including many visits to Spencer Spit. In fact, we have probably spent more time in this park than any of the other 149 Washington State Parks!
In many significant ways, our life experiences on Lopez Island formed a wellspring for our family, which was shifted and molded by our interactions with the world around us and recreated in new and interesting forms to make us the people we are today.
In just such a way, the deposition of glacially transported debris that was draped over the bedrock of this place in the Pleistocene was the wellspring of the geomorphological feature of the "Spit," the centerpiece of Spencer Spit State Park, shifted and molded by the gentle waves of the surrounding Salish Sea into this particular landform.
Patty and I are beginning our seventh decade of life this year, and that seems like a good occasion to muse a bit about the course of our lives' paths. First of all, it is estimated that only about 10% of all of the 108 billion human beings who have lived on this planet have even made it to age 60! Nearly 1 billion of those seniors, or about one in ten, are alive right now. So there's a bit of exclusivity right there, thanks to our having been born in this era, and the benefits of privilege incurred by our race and social class in the USA.
The recent advent of our grandparenthood has been an impetus for Patty and I to focus on our life's path to the edge of elderhood, and the responsibilities that status brings with it.
But, back to this landscape.
The formation of a simple spit like Spencer Spit that extends into deeper water from a headland requires at least three things:
1) a voluminous source of relatively unconsolidated sand and gravel adjacent to the beach (check; Pleistocene glaciers moved it all here)
2) prevailing winds at an angle to the shore to nudge it inexorably away from the source pile to a new destiny by the process of longshore drift (got it; the open waters
of the Salish Sea offer a lengthy fetch for air pressure differentials to generate steady breezes)
3) a perfect convergence of those nudging currents acting from opposite directions under the influence of the surrounding landmasses to sculpt this enduring landform (no worries; the byzantine passageways of the San Juan Archipelago have created just the right pathways here).
Likewise, the attainment of our wise(?) elder status has been predicated on a few parallel factors:
1) a voluminous source of life experiences to draw on for personal growth;
2) our ever-evolving marriage and nurturing relationships with family, friends, teachers and mentors to nudge us inexorably toward self-actualization;
3) convergence at the stability of elder status, with the time and leisure to be a resource for sharing what wisdom we think we have attained.
Seventy years ago, Abraham Maslow anchored the concept of self-actualization, "the desire to become more and more what one is capable of becoming." More recent work by Scott Barry Kaufman has shown the profound connection between these 10 characteristics of self actualization and optimal human health and growth.
Freshness of Appreciation: undiminished wonder at the basic experiences of life
Acceptance: self-acceptance of one's strengths, quirks and limitations without shame or apology
Authenticity: maintenance of self-dignity in any situation (being yourself...)
Equanimity: life's ups and downs taken with grace and acceptance
Purpose: sense of duty to accomplish a particular mission in life
Perception of Reality: always trying to get at the real truth about people and nature
Humanitarianism: genuine desire to help the human race
Peak Experiences: seek and have experiences that open new horizons and opportunities
Good Moral Intuition: feeling "deep down" when something is wrong
Creative Spirit: creativity in daily life
Not surprisingly, research shows that people whose lives mirror these characteristics display greater indicators of well-being, including higher life satisfaction, curiosity, self-acceptance, positive relationships, personal growth, autonomy and purpose in life.
What can we do, as individuals and as a society, to nurture these 10 characteristics of self-actualization?
As grandparents, parents and mentors, of course, we can strive to foster the self-esteem that will build a foundation for self-actualization. Empathy that ensures children and adolescents that they are understood and heard is key. Space for creativity will build a lifelong ability to try new things, learn from attempts that don't work out and view challenges from different perspectives.
Educators and managers can promote systems in schools and workplaces that are all about setting goals, breaking them down into attainable steps and monitoring progress, working within teams and taking on challenges without overwhelming.
As a society, policies that draw on the scalable ability of governments to assist those in need to meet their basic requirements for healthy food, clean water, affordable shelter and safety can assure that all persons have the ability to follow their own path toward self-actualization.
And of course...... a world filled with parks and green spaces accessible to everyone, protecting the lungs of the planet (and all its other parts!) is absolutely essential to self-actualization.
Our grounding in a shared love for the wild places of planet Earth surely had something to do with the fact that Patty and I met each other while working as park rangers in North Cascades National Park, not to mention the fact that we are currently engaged in a quest to visit all of the Washington State Parks (with this essay, we have now touched on more than 1/5 of the parks). Truly, the drift of our lives has pushed us along a trajectory that has provided many opportunities to work toward our own self-actualization.
Just as the longshore drift at Spencer Spit is always a work in progress (will it ever form a solid path all the way to Frost Island just beyond?), so it is with each of us, in our own process of becoming.
--David
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