Into the ocean
I took her silence as permission to pray, or really do whatever it was I was being called to do and it just so happened the moment called for a talk with something higher. Out into the ocean I breathed with purpose, dissecting the smells of my surroundings; surf, sand, a passing sun, and peace. She would have understood me if I told her it smelled like peace though I decided to let the thought remain unspoken. He came to me. Thoughts of my sister coming into a new phase in her life...spring. I contemplated spring and in that split moment of inhale when he came, hummmmmm I exhaled him out into the wind. Are you sure? Its what you know. Its where you have been, this relationship has defined so much of your life. Another deep inhale and hmmmmmm blew the doubt into the wind after him. I am not, nor will I ever be defined in relation to another; surely if I am more than my body I am more than his safety. A birth..my sister, her young budding joy and a rebirth in myself truly alone with my heart solely as my own. I remembered blue like jazz...
[I want to] marry a girl who, when I am with her, makes me feel alone. I guess what I am saying is, I want to marry a girl whom I feel completely comfortable with, comfortable being myself.” How lovely a thought is this? The idea of being with someone and being able to be yourself completely when you are around them, and know they will still be there, this is what I too have always wanted in a marriage. The author is not married, he has a discussion about marriage with one of his friends, whose main issue with marriage is that while he is in an intimate relationship, it will never be the ultimate fulfillment, because “there are places in our lives that only God can go.” I found this idea fascinating. After this conversation, author then writes a monologue of a husband to his wife, in which he says: “I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God’s own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.” This is what I want in a relationship, in a marriage.
It has come to the point, I told the sea, where I am acutely aware of myself. Not only that, but I can predict his response to me. There is no curiosity, no wonder, no...adventure. It is safe but the comfort of that safety is what has escaped me.
I wanted to sit down and feel the earth in my hands while I spoke with the sea and breathed in the air, lighting my own fire for perfect alignment with each element. I instead slipped a foot out of my shoe. I breathed in again. Just me? Just me. And for the first time, maybe ever, it did not feel like a problem to be fixed or a riddle to be solved. It simply was. I simply am. Alone with my heart, but not lonely in love.
On the way home from the adventure, she asked me how I felt? Was I lighter having left it at the ocean? I said I felt like that wind. I felt like peace. There was no noise there, no man made noise. Just the wind and the tide as it swept across the beaches and kissed the cove as if they were newlyweds. I felt like that but how do you put a perfectly sacred moment into words? I felt like there was no noise. Just peace. Just still. Just divinity.
