The Salt Path

Stepping Out Onto The Salt Path

Running from the tide

Have you ever reached a place in life, where you realize you really aren’t fine?A time when you are forced to admit that you’ve just been pretending that everything is okay?

Fake it till you make it, right?

Well, that’s not how life works.

Sometimes we fall into roles and continue playing the part long after the curtain drops. Why do we do it?

I think there’s something in the human nature that makes us believe that all endings are bad. Death. Divorce. The loss of a job. Moving. We avoid these moments in life because we’re afraid of what comes next. Uncertainty is disturbing.

No, we weren’t fine, we were far from fine. The swash and suck wasn’t coming from below, it was right outside. — Winn, The Salt Path

As The Salt Path opens, we see in the prologue, Raynor and Moth camping on the beach, resting peacefully in the belief that they are fine. With no warning, the tide swept in on them in the night. They were very nearly drown.

I remember when the tide rushed in on me.

I was living the dream. I had survived a divorce and had remarried, to a neurologist, no less. I had a big, beautiful house. Money was no worry. My kids were doing great. I was making new friends. I had a fabulous job at an accounting firm. I was studying at the University of Maryland with plans to go to grad school after I completed my bachelors degree. I saw myself teaching poetry and rhetoric one day. Jane Allred, PhD. That was going to be me.

I heard the tide swash and suck, but convinced myself it wasn’t near. The flashbacks came and went with regularity. I ignored them.

Until I couldn’t ignore them anymore.

The tide rushed over me unexpectedly one day, while I was in the shower. This flashback was so real and so detailed, I couldn’t pretend any longer. I was faced with an awful truth; I had been sexually abused by my father as a child.

I had lied to myself, believing that I always told him to stop. In my fabricated version of the past, I said, “No,” very firmly and his hand always stopped at the elastic waistband of my panties.

But that wasn’t the truth.

I didn’t run for safety, like Raynor and Moss. Instead I slashed at my wrists, took pills, and stepped in front of a bus. I begged the tide to pull me down.

I couldn’t go on.

I lost everything. My husband. My house. For a while, my sanity.

But tides have a way of moving. They rush in; but they also rush out.

I was fortunate enough to find a therapist I could connect with, and together we worked through years of abuse. I went back to where it all started and dealt with the difficult memories I had avoided. I started over.

Moth ran up the beach in the moonlight in a ripped pair of underpants that he’d been wearing for five days straight, holding a fully erected tent above his head. It was a miracle. It was as good as it gets. — Winn, The Salt Path

Like Moss, I was no longer the helpless person who had crumbled under the strain of life. I was transformed into someone much stronger than I ever would have expected. It was a miracle.

And that’s when I began to walk my own salt path.

Be sure to read Scot Butwell’s tips on dealing with traumatic loss. I especially like #7 She does what needs to be done to get to the next day. That is the only way we can do anything. Thank you, Scot, for sharing some great insight.

I’m looking forward to reading posts from my fellow travelers. Tagging you all: Evon, Janice Macdonald, Klara Jane Holloway, C.A. Jaymes, Angie Mangino, Michael L Butler, The Sober Vegan Yogi, Belcairn, Mary DeVries, and Scot Butwell.