Dear Journal,
Bondi is shaped like a crescent. I've often wondered if it's the cradle that soothes me, the illusion of being held. I come every morning to surf. Two days a week I work from my apartment and stay in the water an extra hour. I'm sitting in the sand now. Young families play at the edge of the beach. A golden hue silhouettes the surfers a hundred yards out. A group of friends duck beneath waves and a breeze blows across all of us. I've been in Sydney a year. The week before I moved, I took a trip to Walton- savored hugs with the kids, walks along the lake with my mom. I was down to two suitcases. I had sold everything in Los Angeles- trying to cross an ocean with furniture and books and eight pairs of jeans felt like an ill-fated goal. I checked my bags in Detroit. They were meant to follow me to LAX for a layover, then onto Australia for this path. This choice.
This morning, before I walked to the beach, I read the previous entry. I'd like to say I understand more- the dance. Why others bang and beg in a room they feel trapped in, on a path they can't unwind. Why Jamie was killed and I spared, why my father collapsed at work. I don't agree with destiny. I don't defend the stone it scrambles or the forks it carves but it's the sound we all must clap to, the doors we all must walk. I'd like to say I know better, given what happened- that sudden wave and its unknown blue. But as I sit here now- waiting, ready- the mystery shocks me. My breath claws to my throat. I think of the star in my father's story and I try to release it- the confusion. The quest to set reason clear. I don't think I'm capable- any of us are. And if it's all random then my God am I lucky. That's what the surf instructor said, all those years ago. That's what I thought when I saw him.
My God.
My God it's true.
My flight from Detroit never made it. We landed in Minneapolis, grounded by white-cloth storms and a January chill. "See the desk to reschedule," the flight attendant told us. "Or visit the airline's office, in the opposite terminal. Look for the tram." By the time I departed, the desk at the gate was filled. Every corner of the airport was crowded, other flights ground. I wove through the bodies and followed the arrows, waited again for the tram. I squeezed against the window and an automated voice welcomed us to Minneapolis. The tracks were elevated above the gates and scowl-heavy faces walked below- bodies padded with jackets. The train began to move and they morphed together- a father chasing a child. A woman gesturing. A man hunched against a wall- head craned over a book. His hand reached for the page and that's when I whispered. That's when the air turned still.
I knew that movement.
In London it carried me across the room. In Paris it spun in anger. In Maui I rested my cheek to its muscle and in Australia I memorized its every bone. I knew the way he danced, stretched and extended. Lifted a cup, pointed forward. I knew the way he slid his hand down my skin, hips flexed when he sat. Calves contracted when he trudged across a rocky sand. I knew how his shoulder rotated when his hand moved toward me, outlined my lip or brushed my hair. When he reached backward, hanging from a cliff in Kaanapali. When he promised to fall, if I fell too. When he begged me to see.
I dove from that ledge. Eyes open, body stretching. I unlatched my soul and a frothing blue caught me, a golden sky. There were rocks, dark shadows in the water. Clouds overhead. But I focused on the sapphire, I bent my knees and soared. I placed my palm to the window- the terminal passed in fragments and voices around me penetrated, passengers pixelated and the world came back into view. An announcement was made for an upcoming stop and I felt the wheels churn below me, gears slow. Maybe he didn't get the letter. Maybe he got it but was with someone else. Maybe he read it at the end of a horrible day or maybe he really did hate me. Other travelers stood and shifted; the platform appeared. None of that mattered- I understood how far I'd come. Because it wasn't faith in Elliot that flexed my muscle, tightened the strap of my bag. It wasn't a blind gaze to the dangers that wove my way to the front. It was a decision, a choice. If this was my chance- I wasn't going to waste it. I wasn't going to walk through the door fate offered.
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
Bend Fly Run
रोमांसAt nineteen, Beanie made a choice that brought her adventure and agony, and she's been treading through the debris of its destruction ever since. Eight years later, she travels to Australia in a moment of bravery and shares a surfing lesson with El...
