The ocean kicks up onto my feet splashing its salty wetness up onto my shins and my calves and my thighs. I only hear the wind against my ears until I hear his voice carry over it like a melody from a different song playing over the harmony of the wind. I don’t even know which is which but it’s all there and it’s all around me in that moment. The sun barely takes the edge off the cooler air even though it’s shining with all its might down on my face, on my legs, on my feet. The ocean comes up, splashes, and pulls the sand with it on the way back down, pulling the sand out from under my feet, carving a hole at my heels and then around the sides, challenging my balance, forcing me to step out of that space and into a fresh spot some inches down the beach. First, I am sunk in. Then, I am pushed off.
She has traveled far and wide and long and short. She has been to places that were never on her list and places that felt like home when home had long been gone. She’s anxious in her own skin but easy to connect with and easy to know on some level. She’s tired but seldom complains about it. She’s lost but keeps going because there’s somewhere she’s supposed to be though she hasn’t got a map or rsvp’d.
Did I mention she’s tired?
The road feels exciting yet familiar so she goes, always going, always on her way, always eager to get there, wherever there is. She told her dad that she wanted scars, she wanted to experience life, she wanted to get off the paved path and do the hard stuff. She wanted scars.
Can you see them? The scars, all over her face and her heart and her gut and her breath? She doesn’t hide them, she doesn’t know shame like that, not about that, not about scars. She hides her shame in between moments of joy and underneath layers of dreams and only takes it out when nobody is looking, even though somebody is always looking. Her hair gets shaved when she needs to remember who she is and that she’s not her hair or her stomach aches or her big empty bed or the saltines in her pantry.
She has traveled far and wide and long and short and been dragged and pulled and scuffed and stretched. She can talk about anything because she’s seen everything and she accepts everything because she’s tried everything. You might see her as resilient or strong and maybe that’s true. It’s also true that she’s curious and detached from it all so she keeps going to see what happens next and to see how next might feel.
She’s eccentric and boring and supernatural and tired. She writes better than she speaks and speaks better than she loves. She loves though and then forgets and then loves again even though it always hurts because she hopes she’s wrong even though she’s been so right.
She has traveled far. She has traveled long. She’s bright and tired and on her way but don’t wait for her. Don’t wait. She’s unreliable as she is accepting. She’s fleeting as she is happy. She feels like home but so far away. She’s here but don’t wait for her.
