Wind Sailor

A reminder to let the breeze take you

Velella vellela jellyfish on the shore at Avila Beach, California

I was in San Luis Obispo last week visiting my daughter and staying in Avila Beach. On a drizzly-grey morning I took a walk with my coffee along the shore to breathe in all that delicious salt air and look for mussels. I have been collecting mussel shells since I was a kid and although I have yet to do anything significant with them, I tell myself that one day I am going to create a huge, mussel-themed mosaic. For now, though, they mostly line my fireplace mantel.

My mussel collection on my fireplace mantel

I love walking on the beach in that meditative state where you are only listening to the waves crashing and thinking about what is in front of you. Quiet walks on an empty beach, searching for shells, are as close as I will ever get to transcendental meditation. So, as I was zoning out I noticed an especially pretty blue shell with an iridescence to it that made me pause. As I crouched down I began to see that this was a small, delicate jellyfish. And then I noticed there were tons of them lining the shore! Gifts from the sea.

Of course I had to snap a photo and post to my Instagram story—all things must be documented on social media—or they never happened, right? And luckily a friend of mine knew about this jellyfish and told me it was a Velella velella also known as a “wind sailor.” I was smitten and dove deep into researching this creature who is also known by the charming names “sea raft” and “little sail” and who is a free-floating hydrozoan that lives on the surface of the open ocean.

These deep blue jellies have a small sail that catches the wind and propels them over the surface of the ocean, like a sailboat. They literally flow with it. They let the breeze take them where it may and this means that sometimes they get stranded on a beach. Can you imagine living your life totally in a flow-state?

I’m back home now and back to routines and boring stuff like work and laundry, but I also keep a kernel of the spirit of the wind sailor in my mind. I’d like this kernel to grow to the size of a walnut or maybe as big as a mussel and stay lodged inside me. A reminder to go where the wind takes you (hopefully a beautiful beach) because we aren’t in control of anything anyways.

A reminder to sail away once in a while—just flow with it—no need for an itinerary or a map.