Between Sea and Sky

When I was a girl, I loved going out onto the ocean, alone, to a place where I could drift between sea and sky without fear of interruption - no other boats, no people, no sound to disturb the song of water and wind.

I would drift, float, sometimes slip into the water, lay on my back, and just...be.

When I moved away from the shore, I missed it, and a place deep within my psyche still yearns for that place between places.

Land-locked, I would climb trees to find solace, making my way deep into the woods where cool shadows curled around each other, played tricks with the light, held secrets and mysteries, kept little stores of snow hidden away from the spring melt. Up high, nestled in the topmost limbs, I would feel the tree sway in the wind, let myself sway with it, listen to the hushing of air through the branches, smell the pine-and-loam of the forest below. With a book, bottle of water and an apple, I could stay up there for hours and just...be.

When I moved from New Hampshire to Georgia, I was bereft - no sea, no magnificent old conifers to climb, and surrounded by people who I didn't know and who thought me worth teasing and bullying because I was different from their norm.

Without the solace of the tides or the creaking embrace of the trees, I found Night.

Outside the house I shared with my Mum and Big Brother, I found relief from the heat, from prying eyes and wagging tongues, from television and telephone and The World. There were the stars above, and I fancied they were laughing, singing, dancing just beyond my reach. The moon would caress me with her light, wrap me in pale silver-blue coolth. I would lie in the grass, staring up and out, and just...be.

Throughout my life, for as long as I can remember, I have preferred solitude to company. A lonely old soul, am I. As a child, I did fine among people - I could laugh, play, socialize, and be content, but I spent more time alone, reading, coloring, or wandering the lanes of made up lands for hours on end.

The older I get, the more I value solitude, and the less I have of it. I wonder if the reason I am so often out of sorts is because I am so infrequently left to myself.

Sometimes my mind wanders down unfamiliar paths, and I catch myself wondering what like would be like if I were alone. Would I have a little house? A condo? An apartment? Would I have some sort of shop (a bakery, perhaps, or a fortune teller's den) and live above it? Would I write more? Would I feel myself struggling to breathe, as I sometimes do now, because my life is wrapped around me too tight? Or would I be content? What if I had Bird, but no T? What if...?

Don't get me wrong - I love Mum, and Bird, and even T (poor devil), and I love my friends, too...only, it would be nice if I could have days when I was alone with my thoughts and my madness and could just...be.