She looked around accusingly. Felt the rain-drenched sand, coarse and rough beneath her feet, callused from too many barefoot midnight strolls on the boardwalk. Inhaled the salt-infused air, more potent than any drug her crazed, post-Woodstock neighbors had ever used. Heard the cackle of gulls off in the distance, fighting the violent gusts to stay in flight. She stared at the ocean, dark with all its majesty, and truly saw what was before her.
Looked at the white-capped waves, shoving each other for dominance. The grey-blue hues that fight for the right to appear after a forceful storm. The rushing of wave after wave, energetic enough to hear from the street. Waves crashing over each other, wayward, in all directions. Chaotic, but never purposeless.
It was so different from her normal ocean. The ocean that welcomed her home every night after a long day of work. The water that soothed her agitated mind with its transparent cerulean shades. That brought her peace – on most nights, at least.
But not tonight. Tonight, that peace was missing. Why, she wasn’t sure. Today had been an ordinary day, but tonight was anything but ordinary.
For those watching, it would have seemed normal. She had driven home along the same route, hit traffic in all the spots she normally did, walked her beagle down the same streets she always did, microwaved leftovers for dinner, just as she had done every other day that week – all the everyday trappings of her life were there.
And yet for all the pieces of her life that were present, something was not. She didn’t know what was missing. She didn’t even know something was missing. To her, it was just a normal day. Almost.
But somehow, the ocean knew. It felt her on a level that no one else ever had, or could. It knew her in a way that, if she was completely honest, she didn’t even know herself. It fueled her strengths, sensed her weaknesses.
To what end, she wasn’t sure. But tonight, it was there. Present. Aware.
In that moment, at this time, that was enough.
Beyond Room 119 