Good for Nothing

Good for nothing.  Those are the words that came to mind on a warm, hazy afternoon last week.  I was on vacation in St. John, USVI with a group of friends.  We do a lot of snorkeling in St. John, and when I say a lot, I mean a LOT!  On Sunday, we spent the morning snorkeling around Maho Bay, but it was too crowded for our tastes.  Lots of families with small, squirmy children.  Lots of teenagers coming in on dinghies from the bigger boats in the center of the bay.  Lots of adults drinking a special punch.

So, after lunch, we walked into Leinster Bay - about a mile long walk - with all of our snorkel gear and our noodles.   We purchased those noodles when we arrived for $4.95 each at the drugstore.  Anyway, the walk in was hot so we decided to cool off by noodling around in the bay before putting on our gear and snorkeling over to Waterlemon.

But, that plan was not meant to be.

We ended up very uncharacteristically spending the entire afternoon floating around Leinster Bay in our sunglasses.  Good for nothing, we were!  Only one other family was on the beach.  They were too busy trying to take a picture of a baby nurse shark to pay us much attention.  Occasionally, a kayaker or a paddle boarder would pass by, but it was very quiet.  Just the sound of the water lapping up against the beach.  We talked some, but for the most part, we just floated.  Looking around.  When the sun broke through the clouds, the water would turn different shades of turquoise and blue and green.  There were times I was hardly able to believe that I was in a place so beautiful.  Hardly able to believe that I was capable of feeling so...peaceful.  Hardly able to believe that such a level of contentment was still available to me.

What if life is full of moments like this, and in my busy business, I rush right by them?

Making time to be good for nothing may be the secret to being good for something.