Once, when I was sixteen, I was upset about something...not sure what. Girlfriend? Parents? Maybe just some adolescent existential angst. So I drove. Fast.
That is what I used to do when I did not know what to do. Drive fast. I drove until I reached the shore.
I wish it was just like that, the road ending at the water's edge, forcing us to face our past by bringing us to where we came from. But it isn't like that. The roads bend and turn at right angles just when we have almost arrived.
We are left to take the extra step (or steps). So I did. I parked my mom's 1976 Malibu Classic, took off my shoes and walked to the water's edge. It was Autumn. The air was chilly.
I remember, now (the feelings, not the cause). I was not upset; I was distraught. I remember crying, standing in ankle-deep, bone-chilling cold. I remember the pull of it as the water receded back into the Atlantic , leaving my feet a little deeper in the wet sand. I remember thinking, "It (the sea) wants me back." I wanted to oblige.
After a bit, I turned and walked, aware of the earth beneath my sandy feet. I sat cross-legged in the sand and looked to the stars and asked God for answers to questions I do not remember. I looked out at the dark horizon where deep indigo was met by black and for the first time in my life, truly noticed the curve of the earth.
I also noticed that my tears had dried and the turmoil I was in was replaced with calm. I remember thinking, "I am a tiny creature on a floating, spinning sphere in an unimaginably vast universe. My worries are of little consequence in the grand scheme of things."
I should spend more time at the beach.
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