From the Storm

A Narrative of the Cerulean Sea

Within the ship was some great tumult as the waves began to swell. For fear of being lost at sea, I dove overboard and watched as the ship capsized.

You righted it and came for me, your gentle voice attempting the language you knew me to understand. You found me and reached out your hand, but I spurned you. You tried to placate me thinking I had swum away in spite of you, but it was in spite of myself and for that I could not accept your kindness.

The fear ruled me that on some great sailing vessel in the sea the tides might turn on me and leave me wanton. I grasped the first floating log I saw and held on for a while, but the log had nothing I needed – nothing our great sailing ship had given me.

I realized in a moment of stunned reflection as I found myself alone on a sandbar, that the fear of the sea had cost me the comfort of the vessel and the companionship of my sailing mate. Perhaps it is a curse on me that I should fear to weather the storm.

Perhaps I was too green upon the sea, and when once I had stumbled on deck as the great sea sweltered beneath you spoke to me some foreign thought. I did not know how to understand the one person presently coming to my aid. Had I stopped to hear the intention and held my response until the sea had calmed enough to be heard, would I have fled? I cannot know.

And dwelling alone upon the sandbar, I found some depth. In sitting still and watching the calm waters which I understood. It takes a crew – or at least a couple good sailors – to navigate the vast sea. Alone I contemplate the myriad life in those waters. And upon all that is spoken in absolute silence, through presence. Even the kelp reach up toward the light of the sun.

In the silence when you were here and the storm raged so that I could not understand you, I had found my fear and from that fear once fled. In the same silence, I found again that same fear – and you are still there upon the righted ship in the now calm waters. About you also a new silence speaks something changed, though what I cannot tell. And I know not whither I should be received if I shouted my halloo. Unto loving arms, scornful recognition, or something else entirely.