What I love the most about being in California again is the incredible amount of quiet time I get. Now, I don't just mean the obvious physical noise being muted but rather a simplistic hush that comes over me when I am able to sit in the quiet. We often see quiet time as something we ought to do and for me it is something I long for on a daily basis. The enormous amount of desire that conveys itself in a moment of picking an orange off a tree, filling the thirsty, longing wilted flowers with nourishment, the crash of the ocean as it hisses... beyond me, beyond this place...echoing into eternity. My mind craves those inexplicable moments that bring nature and human into one place... a quiet place.
I have a dream of walking along the ocean and I feel my toes squishing into the sand, it is warm and soft and forms to each contour of my feet as if to say "I see you, I support you"... as I stop myself and turn toward the vast and unwavering ocean, I can only believe in two things.
That this life is bigger than me but I am still a small instrument in the smallest inter-workings of God
And
That there is more to life than always seeing it as "bigger than me."
In my dream I hold my shoes in one hand, novels of great writers in the other and take a stroll with past minds... I reflect on the inconsistencies of life. The great depression and holocaust the world has immersed itself in. I admire the way my hair blows effortlessly in the salty winds as a splash of wave tickles my ankles and reminds me that I am human and therefore can not and should not decipher the world. Who am I to entertain questions about angels and demons and philosophers? Who am I to entertain questions about my God? Who are you God? Do you see me? The waves speak to me.... crying, exacerbating thoughts that make no sense... make no mention of understanding. Hurling their deeply entrenched desire to guide me toward the true light, the true answers... my Arthurian journey. Endless wandering of sand between my feet, chilled water at my side and violent wind a my back...
This dream is a literal dream but a picture of my life in a reality I desire so often. When I close my eyes, I find myself feet in the ocean, ankle deep in the crisp rejuvenation of life. The reminder that there are endless possibilities as the ocean seems endless on the aching horizon.
I slowly dust the sand off my feet as I trail further away from the ocean I love, the ocean I crave, the endless possibilities of fluidity and motion. I carve my dreams not in sand but in stone... ones that I can remember. My dream will be my reality. My reality is this moment and this moment is quiet.
