I dipped my feet in the water, then my calves, then my waist, until I was completely submerged, disappearing for a few moments. I reemerged with darker, wet hair, a different version of myself.
The lounge chair awaits me, the book ready for me. The breeze flips through it for me. It selects pages, folds the corners of the paper like arrows: "Read here!" I obey every gesture of the poetry that reveals itself through nature.
At 17 p.m., without fail, I'm sitting on the rock. I've been performing the same ritual for years. It knows I'm coming. It smiles when I arrive, welcoming me with arms softened by the constant pounding of the waves. I spend hours of my vacation there. I confess my thoughts, reveal secrets, let my hair down. I let it dance to the rhythm of the wind and the sound of the sea. My curls rejoice in the freedom granted. They celebrate the respite from the brush and the straightener. I lie down in the crease that formed to welcome me; I fit comfortably into that space. I look up at the sky and, like a child, play at finding patterns in the clouds. We laugh, me and the rock, which is anything but hard; it's sensitive, like me.
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I make my way back along the beach. The sea erases my footprints, destroys the traces, dissolves the trails. Seconds later, it's as if I'd never been there. Nature respects my discretion. It understands my reservations.
"Is today Friday?" I ask. "No, it's Sunday," they reply. "Is today Tuesday?" I insist. "No, it's Thursday," they reply. In truth, I shrug at the dates; I'll only be officially introduced to the calendar when the days of tranquility come to an end.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, I'm taking a drive and come across a wall painted with colorful wings. I stop immediately. I contemplate. I notice the details, touch the colors, trace the pattern with my fingertips. Finally, I surrender: I fit into the gap between them. I stare into space. Absorbed. It was precisely there that I wrote this column and allowed myself to be photographed.
I gave wings to words so that, from me, a story to tell would be born.
