Sweet Potato Haircut

The cold morning rises and I know that this is the day for departure. I hear the phantom fall of the black waves against the jutting land and the pebbled beach, I hear the soft and seductive hush of her voice calling out, maybe not to me, but to those who are ready to relinquish seeking and unseeing scouring of the mundane for the meaning of things. I am called, and pull on my wellies and quit my earrings, my necklace, and each ring on my freckled fingers to place on the dresser for another day, for another life, and I am unadorned as I step into the low light of the swelling morning. The seaside streets are quiet, but for that growing hush of the sea, still calling out for me and I go there to where the sounds and the salt fill my senses entirely, I am bound to be here now, I have no doubts.

The many colored pebbles slip and clack together under my gentle footfalls, the sound nearly drowned by the power of the sea before me and there, rocking in the surf, is the boat I knew would be waiting for me, tethered to some unseen anchor and with a single paddle rolling across the narrow bottom with each surge of sea. My mind is black with eternity as I step into the icy water, the cold cutting through my boots but my steps are slow and sure. I reach the row boat and swing my leg, one and then the other, over the chipped side and we sway in the surf and from the momentum of my movement. I untie the knot tethering the anchor to the front of the boat, and I watch it drift.

I look up at the dark and clouded sky, mist and sea spray sprinkling my upturned face, and I am laughing.

I look down at the rolling paddle and I pick it up, cold and wet in my hands, and I know that I must offer it to the sea in order to be free. This is called surrender, and I feel the sensation of it, sweeping and serious and simultaneously liberating — the load that has so long held my chest in tight terror of loss, of failure, of death, is lifted and I find tears on my cheeks as joy unfolds from the aching depths of me, the joy that has long been waiting for the space to blossom in me when the fear was finally released. I watch the wood churn aimlessly in the swell and sway, my fear drifting away with it.

I look out, I see nothing but space. I see everything and space, I see dark distance and whitecapped waves waiting for me as I give myself away to eternity. I am no longer me, no longer in need of name or number to tether myself to this abundant existence. I have nothing to hold on to. I am inextricably connected to the soul of the world, to the love that moves in currents as the wind and the water, I am empty so that I can be filled with the aliveness that has so long been silenced inside my body. I listen as the aliveness sways and slides with the rocking of the water, I am a field of sensation and nothing more. 

Someone watching from the shore would see a tiny brown boat bobbing in the dark water, a figure inside facing out toward the endless sea, motionless and free, and floating fightlessly into eternity.