"Just wait until your life starts going backwards".
Some things people say stay with you.
Maybe for me the ocean was where I embarked upon this walk. Starting along the edge of a bay, up the bank of a mighty river, climb the falls and cascading mountain streams, find myself later in the high desert sniffing for any trace of water in a dry creek bed. Another day of this and the ocean in my mind transforms from a memory - a certainty - to a question. One day more in this heat without water, and it's a myth. Beyond that, if I survive, the ocean becomes a cruel lie that never was.
A trace of it now at 2:30 in the morning. The smell of ocean. Cool water. How happy I was walking with her in New York City. What a sport she was at the concert, not used to having to stand to see a show, a foot shorter than the fans in front of her, wearing the wrong shoes for standing or city walking, never once complaining. I was as high as I could be with her, smiling from everywhere.
Parched again now, surveying this landscape. Here and now. The memory of water is pain, delight, tragedy- reason enough to go on or to quit.
Irish whiskey in a coffee cup calling you a superhero - the cup, not the whiskey. You look away.
Crickets. Humidity. Silence.
She's passed through now. Gone. You'll say it was worthwhile when you can. I am sure of it.
Some things people say stay with you.
Maybe for me the ocean was where I embarked upon this walk. Starting along the edge of a bay, up the bank of a mighty river, climb the falls and cascading mountain streams, find myself later in the high desert sniffing for any trace of water in a dry creek bed. Another day of this and the ocean in my mind transforms from a memory - a certainty - to a question. One day more in this heat without water, and it's a myth. Beyond that, if I survive, the ocean becomes a cruel lie that never was.
A trace of it now at 2:30 in the morning. The smell of ocean. Cool water. How happy I was walking with her in New York City. What a sport she was at the concert, not used to having to stand to see a show, a foot shorter than the fans in front of her, wearing the wrong shoes for standing or city walking, never once complaining. I was as high as I could be with her, smiling from everywhere.
Parched again now, surveying this landscape. Here and now. The memory of water is pain, delight, tragedy- reason enough to go on or to quit.
Irish whiskey in a coffee cup calling you a superhero - the cup, not the whiskey. You look away.
Crickets. Humidity. Silence.
She's passed through now. Gone. You'll say it was worthwhile when you can. I am sure of it.
Perfect way to describe losing an ideal, faith, love. But it helps (me) to know the ocean was real, once upon a time.
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