Space and Perspective

I was out on the ocean today... what a luxurious experience of space and perspective. It was an antidote to the feelings of suffocation I've been experiencing lately. My soul is craving the wild and uncharted. I am tired of toting my kids around in my car. The gridlock of the streets is invading my life. I want to walk, to run, to get tired in a good way. Something has got to give.

I was listening to the radio this morning while doing the dishes. LB was playing in her room and LH was taking his morning nap. I had my coffee and was enjoying myself (I like doing dishes in the morning for some reason, like I'm giving myself a fresh start- you couldn't pay me to wash a dish at night). Then the announcer on the radio broke in with a news flash that there had been a workplace shooting in my part of town, only a few blocks from my house. He gave the address of the incident (in which four people were shot, including the shooter who turned the gun on himself), and knowing exactly where that was I realized the kitchen window above my sink where I was standing doing dishes faced directly toward the shooting.

Out on the ocean today I stared at the water. I needed to stare at the water. I sat on the side of the boat, toward the back, and watched the two white lines of our wake pull away from each other. I watched the water run up the side of the boat as the hull cut it. I watched it arc, splashing back down into itself. My eyes drifted along the surface of the water, away from the boat, as far as I cared to gaze. The green depths of the water drew me in, and although I didn't see anything, it seemed that any second I would. I wasn't going to miss it. I needed to stare at the water.