Wider Than the Light

The treasure the storm could not tear from me.

©Roland Vögtli (author)

The captain had left the sea behind. Or perhaps the sea had left him behind. He couldn’t quite tell.

The junk lay a stone’s throw away upon the shore, where shingle and seaweed mingled, and where the tide could still reach for her one last time. From here, she was out of sight. Perhaps that was for the best.

The storms of the past weeks upon the open sea had left their mark. Salt in the cracks of his hands. A weariness buried deep in his shoulders. And that lingering vigilance still crouched within him like an animal poised to spring. As though the next undoing were only a moment away.

But the sea was silent.

Before him lay only the narrow spit of land reaching out between sea and sky. The light of early morning drifted across the shallow pools and gathered in small hollows between the pebbles. Farther out, the sea lay calm, as though it had never done anything else.

The captain stood still. Long enough for the roar of the past weeks to be slowly licked away by the sound of the waves. Long enough for his shoulders to remember the relief of having nothing to bear. Long enough for the world to open up again.

During the storm it had shrunk and narrowed, reduced to wind directions and threatening clouds, to the groan of timber and the question of how much longer anything could endure.

But now, the world was giving things back to him.

The vastness. The colors. The play of light upon the water. The scent of kelp and wet stone. A gull circling somewhere overhead.

It was as though the world were gently reminding him that it was more than loss.

He takes a deep breath. The air is cool.

And for the first time in a long while, it seemed to reach those places within him that had remained closed throughout the storm. Perhaps that was what had exhausted him most. That endless bracing against something that could never truly be stopped.

Survival is the true victory in any struggle with a storm.

Now it was over. Not resolved. Not healed. Only over. At last.

He gazed out across the sea and felt the knots within him begin to loosen, like rigging when the wind dies away.

His attention drifted back across the shingle, the shallow pools, and their dancing reflections. At his feet, a shadow. Broader than it seemed it should be. And his attention settled on the curious shadow.

For a fleeting moment, the scent of roasted almonds seemed to emerge between wind and salt. “Ah, Salt-Whisperer… delicate as the petals of a peony…” he rumbled to himself and felt something within him give way. Like parched earth when rain finally falls. Yielding. Receptive. Drops from the spring, drunk as words are drunk when they come from a land beyond shame and judgment. Words and drops that set him adrift between thought and trembling.

With his eyes closed, he let out a quiet sigh and listened to the sea. He felt the wind caress his face and savored being kissed by the gentle sunlight of a day quietly yielding to night.

And somewhere between breath and heartbeat, he noticed that none of it had been lost to the storm. The ability to wonder. The willingness to remain open. That vitality seeping into the old sea-bear’s heart. That longing not merely to behold beauty, but to be changed by it.

He lifted his gaze.

“I stand upon what we were. Alone with what I have become.”

That oddly broad shadow.

And far beyond, almost hidden in the haze, the silhouette of a small island took shape. The captain took a deep breath. And simply let his gaze rest out there.

(8th episode of the series “BecomingAgain”)

[embed]List: BecomingAgain | Curated by ItsAlwaysRightNow | Medium BecomingAgain · The world keeps moving forward, sometimes taking away what we longed to hold onto. Not the images…itsalwaysrightnow.medium.com