The Message

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

We ate at a small, quiet restaurant on the coast. A line of pebbled steps led from the dining area to the ocean. Again, my mind flashed back to the other side of this dark ocean, and I saw myself with the blue-and-yellow raft, and I felt something pulling me down to the water. And so I walked down the steps until I was right at the edge of the ocean, the water lapping against the stony shore. I bent down, and when I felt the water rush between fingers, a joy came with the cold of the wave, and I heard the ghosts singing. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced a deeper sense of triumph in my life. I felt that I had somehow beaten history itself. I thought of all my exponential grandmothers taken from this side of the world and into the vast ocean. I thought of their frustrated dreams of getting back home. I thought of the home they tried to make on the other side, despite it all. I carried a part of all of them with me, every one of them. And I had come back. And looking out on that rocky beach, I felt the whole of the land speak to me, and it said, What took you so long? What indeed.