To Be or Not to Be

She moved her now heavy body through the waves, slowly getting closer and closer to the shore. Beneath her feet, the sand slid so that she could hardly keep her footing. After nearly five minutes, she made it out of the Pacific. Then she fell just pass the line of the tide and rested her weary head.

It was the first time she had done dawn surfing in years. She must have been a fool to come out here alone, but she never minded taking risks. She must've surfed for at least three hours but the way her body felt, it could have been three days. 

As she lay on the shore, her body continued to move with the force of the waves that toppled her over and over. The last time was just too much. It brought with it the realization of the preceding months and the massive weight she had been carrying. All of this combined, she had to get out of the water. Here, on the sand, she could rest. It didn't matter how many people passed or how they looked at her. She was warm, it was sunny and she was coming toward a great precipice in her mind.

The thoughts would not stop this time as she allowed the first trickle to come through. Usually, she kept them dammed up, like the little Dutch boy, always hoping someone would come save her. To hell with that now. There was nothing to stop them here. Everyone was gone, no one who mattered was around. At least not now. So she let go. 

The tears were as massive as the pressure behind them. They rolled in long streams down the side of her face, into her ears, and down into the soft sand. She wept silently for a while. The initial wave only just beginning to build. Her mind was empty, the thoughts had transformed themselves into pure emotion and there was no reason to think. Nothing seemed real, even the people seemed to regard her with a wide berth. 

As the energy built up, her body began to rock slowly like a hiccup and then more forcefully, like a laugh with no mirth. She allowed a small noise to come out of her, sounding more like a dog whining than anything else. Accidentally, she let a more female like whine escape. This gave her the go ahead to cry. To really cry. And she did. Loudly and wholly, exploring the full range of her voice. From a moan to a shrill shriek, she cried. It sounded like murder, childbirth and betrayal all in one. You would've cried just to hear it, it was so true.

As always, it came in waves like her favorite pastime. She would rally through a deep downpour of crying and then it would subside. Then moments later, the energy would rise again, and again, she would wail. In this moment, there was nothing but she and the ground beneath her body. The air around her like a sacred hush. No one came to check on her, there was no way they'd allow themselves to go near that sort of pain. It was something most people wouldn't face. 

No, she lay there alone crying for hours. It wasn't until she was all cried out that she remembered her home. Her real home, not the one she had shredded herself to pieces to build. She remembered her home and all of her family. She remembered that from which she came. It was a miracle to remember and she said a prayer of gratitude for the memory. She was proud to remember, always she was proud. No matter how deep she was mired in the turmoil and tragedy, she always remembered.

There was a time when it was years between remembering. Decades would pass in slumber and then she would awaken and see herself as she really is. These were the moments to live for. The moments to create from, to love in and to expand upon. She loved these moments, minutes at times, and she was always amazed how she came down from them, slowing down gradually, angst building up, causing her to walk as though she were exiting the ocean: slowly, sinking into each step, taking forever to get anywhere.

When she was whole, she was whole. She was love and she was resilience. She was fury and fire. She was the best that ever was. But when she was broken, she was slain. Completely obliterated. She was dried up and a succubus to everything in her wake. And she despised it. But she always crawled out. The moments between sleeping and waking were becoming more frequent these days and she found herself awake for longer periods of time. But in the break between night and day, she longed for the white hot fire of light. Sometimes, she forgot that she had it at all.

Here on the beach, she was experiencing the break. She did remember but it wasn't enough. Knowing wasn't enough, she knew that too. She must act. But that was always the struggle. She didn't want to act. She never knew how. Everyone else had their own ways of acting but her way never seemed quite right. It wasn't as though she was jumping hills or flying airplanes. She was mainly documenting and creating but in ways that she couldn't seem to let loose into the world. She always dreamed of doing just that, excelling to fame, but when she got close, she ended up thinking she was more suited to the cave life, the underground life. 

It was a constant exhalation and inhalation, ebbing and flowing. There was no middle path for this one. Absolutely abstinent or complete drunkard. She never knew how two opposites could be housed in the same body. And more importantly, which one was really her?

And the ever present, looming inquiry of "Now, what?" burdening her path. Surely, she should act. That is what anyone would do. But truth be told, she didn't care about anyone and she had done enough in the last three years to fill a decades worth of action. So, let's just lay here until nightfall. It's already getting close, she thought.

So there she lay, snuggled down in the sand, still warm with the summer time heat. She was fully prepared to accept her fate and allow death to overcome her. But at the last moment, she remembered again who she was and she jumped up and ran as hard and as fast as her body knew how. As she looked above the horizon, she could just see the first star making it's appearance, and she knew she'd make it yet.