Before last night I had today’s whole post planned out in my mind. And then I found myself on an island in Washington, standing at the water’s edge. And suddenly all I wanted to write about, to meditate on, was that very spot.

Any of us who have ever spent time around large bodies of water know that something profound happens there. A feeling of intense calm, of clarity, of being at peace. Really.

The wind picks up there, at sunset on the water, washing your face with air and making strands of hair dance the tango. You feel the granules of sand packing and dispersing under your feet. A seagull’s cry echoes in the distance. And the boats in the water rock back and forth, and the sun sets behind the clouds. And the water. The water. The waves. The tide picks up and the water embraces the shore again and again and again. Miniature channels that begin from no point you can identify.

In the water is the answer to all the questions you didn’t yet have. And you don’t know the answers. But you know you have them. You know the water has them. You know you’re doing just fine. That your problems are very small. That you are small, and yet you are bound to this greatness, this unrelenting. That it is equal parts you belonging to it and it belonging to you. That if every other deal were to fall through Nature will still be yours. The tide will still be there, waiting to receive you. Waiting to reassure you.

Before you turn to walk away, you open your pocket wide, let the air rush in; close tight, quick, for later. You gather the sight right up into your irises. You file away the sound of the waves. You are one with it. It is there for you. Breathe. Relieve. Set it down and set it to sea.