here i linger, on the edge of the continent, writing because it is still daylight, watching because this is the place my heart resides. sad, for reasons unknown.

***

years and years ago, i stopped tracking my daily life. i regret this. perhaps if i hadn’t, life would be different. if there were a record, maybe i could see in words what has brought me here, to the edge of my worlds, physical, spiritual. as it is, i have only naked memories, trusted to the unreliable mind of a tired, lonely, too often depressed woman.

as i sit, watching, life goes on as usual. the sand is pocked with thousands of prints from it visitors on this single day. the waves crash to shore, roll out again, repeat their mindless cycle as they have from the beginning of time. gulls scavenge in the tide pools. foam creeps up the shore – the tide is coming in. soon i will have no choice but to move, other than to be dragged out to sea by a captor with no thought but to continue on its endless journey to nowhere.

i compare myself to the ocean. shallow at the edge, enticing waves beckoning souls to cold, vacuous beauty. depth undiscovered, where no man shall ever travel. ships of thought move, creep, across my mind and my countenance. parts are devoid of life. others are teeming with it. tides pulled this way and that by the moon in her endless cycle. and always, the gulls, just at the shallow edge, crying and fighting for what they believe is their right to take away.

nearby, others not so unlike myself watch as well. are they comparable to me? do they feel the pain i feel each day? worse? if they do, what is their reason to go on?

is it a force of nature, are we driven to continue, like to the sea? what will we gain by moving on? a few yards of beach, drowning in our water, only to be laid bare again in a matter of hours? our surface tramped upon by those whose eyes are blind, leaving nothing but footprints, if we are loved, leaving refuse, if we are not?

a happy couple stopped, asking that i take their picture. they stood, ankle deep in the water of a tide pool, as i recorded their image. in years to come, they will look back at this fleeting moment. will my sadness taint the image of their love, smiling side by side on the sand?