wandering

I was conceived, I was born, and I live. I've not yet died, and neither have you I gather. In the meantime, I would like to explain myself. Not for any particular reason, but I feel as though if more people did, they might not feel so pathologically misunderstood. There is a lot of explaining to do, and I see nothing wrong with that. Everything is at the very least a learning experience, especially mistakes.

At the present, I am sitting on a beach, by my lonesome, watching people and hearing sea birds go about their business. It's quite peaceful, really. Yes, here I sit, in the sunny, sandy abyss of uncertainty, surrounded by calm, happy people and screaming birds of the sea. The reason I am where I am is that I ran away from my life. Eight-hundred miles away. And I'm quite content. Sometimes that really happens.

But if only this picturesque setting were enough to quell my stressful nuisance of the reality that I need to find work. I keep reminding myself: I am doing the best I can. The ocean is doing the best it can, for as far as I'm concerned it exists only to distract me from my own tides.

The sea is rough today. The wind is blowing harshly inland and the waves are cresting higher and higher. The birds seem content to wobble about on the shore, correctly assuming that flight would be an arduous task this evening.

The sun is to my right, in the West, piercing the wind with a delightfully cozy warmth. The sea is straight ahead, to the South, between some vegetated islands, hazy to the naked eye on the distant horizon, and my own perfectly visible shore. Within these past few weeks, I've often looked at these islands, of which there seem to be a few, and wondered about the animals on them.

To my left, the East, I see a curving shoreline, and a road separating my sandy strip of beach and the buildings across the street. There sits a large church with a lovely red roof and a tower, also roofed red. The building is otherwise white, with a large circular window above the entrance facing the sea. After a long row of trees, further down the road I see a tall, bland casino with an adjacent hotel. The buildings on this stretch of road are survivors of the hurricane, and testaments to the ever-oafish human race.

Above me, toward the darkening sky, fly the sea birds. Together, yet alone. Determined, yet directionless. Communicating, yet erratic.

And then metacognition sets in:

Do you ever get that sudden jolt of self-awareness? It's intensely interesting. I used to get them all the time when I was kid, but I only get them sparingly now. It feels like you've stepped outside of your mind for a split second, and you are suddenly looking at yourself as just another living thing, but that living thing is where your mind lives, and you are you. An odd, exhilarating feeling, one that you feel lucky to have experienced, but frustrated from lacking the proper linguistics to explain it.

I cannot describe it better than that. All I know is that it always produces more questions than answers. I could have been anything, but instead here I am, human and all.