(Malibu)

(The thing is, I have to let you go. I have to let go all the things I’m losing anyway, they weren’t my treasures to hold. I sat at the edge of the water, at the other end of the land which I had crossed to see this very place, to wrap my head around what it was and what it would look like now, when everything is different. The ocean twisted and turned and beat itself into towering waves against me, as if to offer no answer, no consolation, and maybe that was exactly the point. Maybe that’s exactly what you get when you cross thousands of miles to solve a riddle that refuses capture. As I stood in the surf, a new story told itself to me, I laughed into the saltwater and ran to write it down before it slipped away with the tide. The ocean takes, and takes, and takes, but then it gives again, and you cannot choose the gifts, only choose to receive them and make something of what you have been given. This journey is mine and mine alone. You have other miles that require crossing, so I have to let you go. There must be other treasures, somewhere.)