Leaving

Then after you're inspired and soothed by the destruction and erasing power of the salt waves, you go home weeks later and discover highway-sized tunnels of emptiness all throughout your body. 

When your dad is dying and you can't be there...

When it looks really dark, and you sit on the couch inside because it is too dark to go outside, you should get up anyway.  Go out into the dew-chilled grass at the edge of the cliff, and the sound of the Pacific waves will wake up the part of your brain that you thought had gone to sleep 2 hours ago along with everyone else in the house. 

It is dark.  But it is not too dark to see the white edges where the water becomes foam and the salt becomes bubbles and together they make the roar that drowns out the part of your day where real people saw imaginary nemeses.  The anger of the waves will soothe the peace in your soul and vice versa.  You will hear it and you will see it, even when you thought it was too late. 

But more than sight or sound is smell.  You will inhale and it will be a deliverance and knowing and assurance all at the same time.  Take it in, all the way down to your alveoli, and then use it for something good before the oxygen in the salt air is used up and you must exhale the day.

7/22/16