I pulled into the Discovery Park parking lot, put in my headphones, and hit shuffle on Spotify. First song to come up? “Hunger Strike” by Temple of the Dog (site of the video). Nicely played, Shuffle Gods. I mean seriously, I could not make this stuff up.

If that wasn’t a call to leave my usual bluff route and head down to the beach, then I don’t know what would be. I wandered the trails, yearning to be lost and far away, at least in spirit. I took a different route down from the bluff, at one point encountering a muddy, washed out section of trail. The irony of my recent post about rock-stepping did not go unnoticed, and I kept going. When I reached the shore, I stopped and threw some rocks in the water, saying goodbye to some things and setting new intentions. Down on the beach, I lingered for a bit, soaking in the rare blue Seattle sky. I’d like to say that I had some profound realizations, as if I received a message that was waiting there for me in the beach grass, but that didn’t happen. I did, however, go home in a better mood than when I started, and that’s always a good thing.