Tides

And then the clouds cleared, the sun returned and all was well with the world. I forgot my concerns, my impatient pacings around the living room carpet, and threw myself into the sea again with a laugh. We sat on the neighbors' balcony and let the sun set over the beach, over the cicadas in the bush; I forgot there was ever rain.

But sleep was short, before the storm raged through my open windows and woke me. Hours pass and I find no rest. My teeth worry me, my life worries me. I am wide awake and hungry.

It's such a cliché. How my mood rises and falls with the movements of the clouds. I hang on for dear life.

What other option is there?

Twist

It rains. Tiny, slow droplets descend like tropical mist onto the trees, the house. Hours pass slowly, and still much too quickly. I think of returning to New York and dread the thought. How pleasant to linger in the dream. My skin tastes salty, sand and seaweed mingle in my hair.

I was giddier when I was younger. Am I too old for sparks and stardust, now?

Bright Lights, Big City

A soft rain crawls through the valley. The sea is warm but tempestuous; my swim is unusually short. I dive instead into the pile of books I brought. Already, too few remain to sustain me. I pretend to ration them, knowing full well I am bound to fail.

I read over my journal, instead, trying to make sense of the months and the year that have passed. I realize large parts of them were omitted. Heart-wrenching episodes ignored, and I hypothesize that, being left un-recorded, in time they will become untrue. Good riddance, perhaps, if it is that easy.

In my latest book, so many familiar street corners. The Village butcher still run by the same name. The bar unfazed by the years. New York is constantly changing, ever a tide of people and places eventually swept out to sea and replaced, but it is still, perpetually New York. I take more comfort in that fact than in any other constant in my life. There aren't that many to begin with.

Now I am here. Wasn't I just in Times Square? he asks from the other end of the earth. As the days turn to months and to another year, I wonder if he will begin to doubt, if his life here will become untrue. Years from now, New York will fade into a distant memory. Will he know it from a trick of the lights?

Good riddance, perhaps, if it is that easy.

New South Wales Nights

A day of bad weather, but all is relative and the sun still shines for half of it, the breeze is still warm and gentle. The beach empties of all but the surfers, some people have proper jobs and pack up, the holidays over. I sit in a plastic chair behind the house with my own words, trying to edit, trying to do something useful with this time spent out of the water. But my brain will not function.

Somehow everything took a vacation and all we do is sleep. At nine-thirty I am fighting to stay up, and I forget what my normal evenings look like in their refusal to tire. I revel in the luxury, but something in me begins to itch. I haven't a word to mull over, I haven't a thought that cares enough to be processed. I am empty, and when there is time to contemplate that, I miss it. Perhaps I have to sink slowly to the bottom of this delicious, sandy, salty, breezy, warm space, before I can wind my way out of it.

It's not a bad place to be, while waiting.

TwentyEleven

The night seemed so endless; we couldn't make it to midnight but collapsed in a cocktail of jetlag and exertion hours before the bubbly was to be drunk. I awoke at the cusp of dawn, the sky a fiery red over restless waters and thought Happy New Year, then. The days all seem the same, after all.

My skin changes color, my hair. My back straightens in the fresh air and my mind unwinds. I forget what time it is and don't bother to find out. I exhaust myself in the tides, circle the computer but calmly. The sights, the scents, the sounds, permeate my being until I dissolve into them and they flow unhindered through me.

Perhaps, perhaps I will pack my things together and come here. How many years have I already dreamed it? How real the possibility seems when my feet are already planted on this earth. A new year begins, a socially constructed clean slate, to match the blank page of this journey. I think It is possible and consider my options, while my sister pleads with me to not run to the ends of the earth. I suspect this place has been calling me forever.

New Year. New You. New experiences on the horizon. New opportunities to do that which you did not before. We are not too old. We are not too late.

Now is the time for revelling in the life you've let yourself build.

Now is the time, to live.

Rip Tide

My body collapses, my steps slow and I fall onto the sand. It's time for a break. But then I turn around, I see the sea rolling to shore, turquoise waves crashing one by one into white froth at the water's edge, and I cannot help myself: I am pulled back in. I dive quickly into approaching waves, swimming feverishly out, out to where the big swells are. I try to stand but the current is strong, it pulls me to the side and I fight it, fight it, until I simply let go and am swept away. Far away I spot it: the next big wave. I wait for it, gauge where it will crest, position my body just right, until I feel that familiar tug backwards, leap in, and surf all the way to shore in one long, overwhelmingly powerful roll. I immediately dive back out, let my body float across green and blue waters until the moment is right again.

Hours pass, I am oblivious to their steady gait. Nothing is relevant but the next wave, the next dive, the feeling of cool Pacific water against my skin. When we leave the beach, I stare at it from the house and long for it, immediately. Much later, I still feel the push and pull of the ocean on my body. Every breath a roll of the tide.

I am lost to sea. I am found.

Australia

A hundred million miles and suddenly only a few feet away. We stepped out into the Sydney air and in an instant I was transformed. Gone were the countless hours of travel, dragging my heavy bag through post-blizzard New York snow, anxious pacing of terminals and restless sleep on cramped seats. Gone were winter stress and Real Life sorrows. All is forgiven, I thought, as the sweltering air of Australia hit me straight in the face.

The feeling of recognition comes back in steps. The humid air like velvet on your skin. The incessant songs of cicadas. I rolled down my window and the scent of eucalyptus flooded my senses. My tongue contorted to form sounds of another language, trying words out quietly in the backseat as we drove past signs and familiar objects. The sand squeaked between my toes and I couldn’t help myself, I left the others and ran the last 50 yards to the water, letting the Pacific wash over my feet like long-lost friends reuniting at the airport exit. Hello, again. I’ve missed you. The beach stretched out for miles in either direction, with a few scattered fishermen still strewn across the late afternoon sunlight, but mostly the place was empty. I giggled the entire time. Finally finding my favorite flower and realizing that it smells just as overwhelmingly comforting as every time before; I breathe it in in deep hits, as though trying to consume it entirely and I cannot get enough.

Australia brings out the very happiest child within me. Immediately, I forget my qualms, my concerns, and my insecurities. The world and its people fade away, and left is only my body, my quivering heart, and this land. I absorb every flavor, every scent, every scene of the landscape that envelopes me. I laugh with reckless abandon and stare at every leaf as though it were an entire new world for me to discover, exploring with innocent curiosity every possibility presented. We go for a morning swim and I cannot get myself to leave the water, straining against the mighty currents only to let myself be swept away a second later, but unable to leave when time is up.

What if we return and are disappointed?, my mother said a few days before we left. With expectations so high, it was a fair query. But as I lie in bed, staring at a million unknown stars with the heavy air draped around me, I am already plotting my future here. How every trip is a blank slate. How every trip is a new life, in the making.