Open Water

Storms are passing over land, and through her life. She knows there is no point in talking about the weather, nothing will change, it will be as it is, regardless. The storms which thunder through her heart are no different. Beyond her control, wild and unsettling, they move through her world with a passion capable of turning it upside down. Some around her offer assistance, advice, direction… with no consistency from one suggestion to the next. Instinctively she drifts towards safe harbors, attempting desperately to drop anchor somewhere, to dock her craft out of reach of the wind, the driving rain, the rolling sea, the cold… She’d give anything to feel warm again, to feel safe, to rest.

As painful as it can be to ride out the storms, she wonders how the blood of the planet would circulate without them. Perhaps she senses her own need for turbulence, for motion. Without movement, she would stagnate, she knows that, believes it, and even understands at some unseen level. But in the midst of this hurricane which hovers over her soul, she desperately searches for the eye… for that moment of stillness where she can find the quiet space to catch her breath.

She debates with herself about the validity of sailing in the open waters, and wonders if perhaps it would be safer to cling more closely to the shoreline. But she’s been bashed against the rocks and has run aground in the sand before, she knows the presumed safety of land is an illusion… or maybe it’s better said that the land can be safe for some, but offers its own hidden dangers, its own method of destruction. The known risk of sailing alone at sea is sometimes less terrifying than the unknown which waits onshore, even in the face of a storm. Some prefer to avoid the sight of land completely, navigating the waters of this life by instinct, and by the unchanging nature of the sky. Weathering the rage of wind and rain in isolation, far from the coastline and its rocks. Some, however, throw caution to the wind and risk everything for a glimpse of life in the estuary, to witness the sunset from a bed of sand, and to watch the colors play off the rocks and the trees, at the treacherous and breathtaking edges of the ocean.