Wave, wind and wonder

Low tide, and the beach a sheen of shallow water catching the sun. Hard to tell what is sea, and what is shine. Oystercatchers along the margins, foraging. The haunting call of curlews against a backdrop of sea roar. No human sounds discernible above the pounding of waves and the rush of wind in ears. There is no time here, only space.

And for a while, I am just wind on skin and light on water. I am the moment when sun fills the wing feathers of an egret turning white feathers into numinous glory. I am the careful tread of boots on sand made sculpture by the retreating tide. I am the touch of cold that is sea on leather and the scent of salt in my nostrils. I am not myself. I am not anyone. I dissolve away into nothingness in this expanse of deliriously inhuman space.

I want to stay here forever.

I know that this marginal, tide turning land is not a place for me. I cannot live here. And still, I want to be light and water and wind and nothing more. I want to be lost, and ephemeral enough to be part of this place.

I am so tired of what humans do to each other.

I am so tired of trying to see the good and so tired of having to forgive what was never good enough and so tired of not being heard when I do dare to ask and so tired of having my heart broken.

A part of me is on the sand, between the water and the sky, between the sea and the shore, determined to stay lost. There are not many people I could stand here with, silent and scoured and salted. There are not many people I know how to be a person with, and far fewer I know how not to be a person with, and those, are certainly the best.