riotheclown

Coasting

There were the beaches of our youth where we marked impossible feats in the sand, the fine cool and forgiving sand, the sand we tossed up in cartwheels, piled up in castles and pushed under us like lovers. It held no records of the past for us. It did not take any names.

We thought we were famous.

There were the coasts, rocky and hard where we climbed, white knuckled to leave a sign “WE LOST EVERYTHING HERE."
As many signs as losses until we could not leave our houses.

There were the coasts we traced with the stories of our lives. The long meandering walks along them, picking up a shell or stick and tossing it back into the ocean laughing. We enjoyed telling the mythology of friendships and the genealogy of families. We kept watch on the sky. We did not stay out in thunderstorms. We always made our way back home safe and warm. We had a dog.

There was the coast when we knew we were adrift. We lay under an enormous sky, our tiny raft somehow lost. The hours became days and the days became the flashing light on the dimpled surface of the water.

The coast with all its details: granular bits of the oldest stone worn down by the constant rocking of the ocean; trees that were old when the oldest prophet walked; rivers spilling out the rain that fell on mountains far away and too mighty for any one to climb, no longer compelled us.

The coast had become a whisper. We slipped into a swell of sound and could not hear it. We were carried away by the unmoving ocean.