228. Looking And Looking

My shoes sink softly into the sand as I stroll across the beach. The bay is calm today, and there are no significant waves, only slight surges of water that wash over the sand before retreating back to the sea.

I’m watching the world when I see you up ahead, sitting on a large boulder. I’m far enough away that you haven’t noticed me. You’re staring out at the water, blank-faced and unmoving. You do not know me and I do not know you. We are two separate beings in our own separate worlds.

I continue to walk, but I notice my attention drifting from the squawk of the seagull, from the dried seaweed covering the sand, from the coolness of the air, towards you on the rock. You are unchanged in your stillness, silent and peaceful.

You must be thinking about something, I guess. Perhaps it’s just the landscape in front of you, or perhaps it’s a memory, something that happened to you, or someone, a person you were close to, a loved one who is now gone.

Or maybe there is no such person or memory. Maybe there is nothing at all on your mind. Maybe you are not even thinking. Maybe you are experiencing a singular feeling, a feeling so reassuring and comforting that it has embraced you, the way the water gracefully embraces the sand. I cannot know this. I cannot know anything at all. But still I have the inescapable sense that you are doing something important at this very moment.

I change course before I get too close, in order not to disturb you. But even after you’re gone from my sight, even after hours and days and weeks have come and gone, I still remember you sitting there in peace, looking and looking.