Originally published in The Holon Project, vol. 2

You Sent Me A Picture Of The Sea

You sent me a picture of the sea. It was the first thing you shared from the shelter of your distance. You would come closer, then retreat, just like the waves you captured from that far away place. You showed me a tiny glimpse into your nature. I do not know if you intended that, but you revealed yourself nonetheless. You are so much like the ocean...or the sea; I’m unsure which word describes you best, there are subtle differences between the two and I am still learning your subtleties and your secrets. Whether I compare you to the ocean or the sea, there is so much to explore beneath the surface of your waves. And have I chosen this metaphor to describe you simply because of the photo you sent? Could you be anything other than this thing that hides its depths beneath a churning that reflects the endless sky? I think not, my love, I think not. But this is a thought borrowed from the future; you are not yet my love as I write this and perhaps you will never be. It is one of many things I imagine within this vast metaphor. It is one of many things that inflates my sense of possibility. 

In the evening I leave my room and watch the lights of the city sparkle below me. Each light I imagine to be a wish and upon each one, I wish to be nearer to you. And I am bathed in an infinity of wishes and the city washes over me like a great wave…

Beneath the moonlight, I walk uphill along the small path that leads from my porch into the mountain. The light from the moon is only enough to entice me to walk deeper into the darkness. But soon even this light will leave me and I will be guided only by my intuition. Is it obvious that this is a metaphor for my discovery of you? But how was there ever a “before you”? Was I ever not in search of you? Was I ever not moving along this path into your darkness?

I walk with intent, I walk without fear. The air is scented eucalyptus; it stings my throat with each breath. I walk into nothingness, I walk into fear. I walk into the darkness because it is all that there is.

You sent me a picture of the sea. You sent me an image of who you are and I am trying to descend to the depths. I am holding my breath, closing my eyes. I feel the water push against me; the violence at the surface becoming softer as I sink deeper. There is silence at the depths, there is life that never sees the surface or the light from the far-away sun. Down here there is darkness and stillness. Down here things are only as they must be. 

I know so well the struggle of things to be what they are, what they should only be. I know the pull of other things, the gravity of expectation, the physics of uncertainty. The world wants us to be anything but what we are, to pull us into its orbit of lost souls. The forces of nature are not indifferent, the forces of nature are brutal and petty and full of lust. The forces of nature are what drive me to you.