Peace.

Vineyard Sound, 16Feb17

Riding along the bike path to WHOI, I couldn't help but look over my left shoulder. Sandstone boulders lined the shore as gentle waves lapped up on the sand. The sea was gray and calm. Suspended over Martha's Vineyard, the morning sun poked through the clouds, piercing fingers of white light interrupting the blue horizon.

I squeezed the brakes on my bike and drifted off of the paved path. I swung my leg over the back tire and leaned on my bike frame sideways, facing the shoreline head-on. In that moment, it was like someone had turned a knob in my brain and released all tension in my body, physical and psychological. Only one word filled my mind: Peace.

As you well know, my work can get hectic at times. My personal life also has a new complicating element, but friends, let me share this thought. I've felt for years that the course of my life was not decided by chance, that each place I've lived was a place I was meant to be. Since moving out east and beginning to work at WHOI, I've had that sense even more intensely than before. Both personally and professionally, right now, I am where I am meant to be. And so in the midst of whatever chaos there is, there are always constants. Friends who care and the God who lead me here in the first place. There is peace.