Isola

by Allegra Goodman

I bowed my head because the world was stranger and more terrible than ever I’d imagined. The sea more mysterious—and I more blessed. How could I think otherwise? That I was blessed to witness such a thing. I did not deserve to see such beauty, and yet this wonder spread itself before me. And I felt God’s presence as I had never done in grief and anger; I knew it in my insignificance. I had given up, and yet God came to me in winter and in ice, in the hard world and in the night. I asked myself, How could it be? But I could not doubt what I was witnessing. I thought, Judge by what you hear. Judge by what you see. “Forgive me,” I called out, and I meant forgive my lack of faith, my anger, and my willfulness—but most of all, I begged forgiveness for hiding in my cave. Silently, I pleaded, Raise me. Bring me back. Gather me as the tide gathers shards of ice. This was my prayer. Not for rescue or escape, but for my soul, which had been sick. I gazed at waves rising and shattering, and this was my resolve—to remember myself as God remembered me.