The sea is dark now. The sun has set and I can’t see where the ocean starts. I can’t see where the water becomes the sky.

I can smell it. I can hear it. I can feel where dry sand becomes wet, wet sand becomes water.

What do I become? Should I know? Can I know?

The sea is dark. It is empty, though I know it must be full.

It is full of death. There is panic and fear and drowning. There is loss and being lost, in infinite landless windless horizon and in crushing forever deep. There are fins and teeth and tentacles and poison. There are eyes, empty too in their echo of the great dark.

I can’t see the danger. Can it see me?

Is there an answer there?

When I was small, an old woman took me to the shore. I did not know her name. I had never seen her before, would never see her again.

I could not swim.

The old woman put me on a small yellow raft. It was not mine. I don’t know who it belonged to.

The old woman took me past the break, to the place where the waves stop pushing and start pulling. I watched her turn and walk away. I watched the people on the beach, the tourists and the sunbathers and the fisherman and the ice cream lady. I watched them shrink. The sea carried me away. I felt it.

Sometimes I still feel it.

My Iowa skin started to burn in the Florida sun. No place to hide from it. I wanted to hide. That morning they told me I was stupid if I forgot to put on lotion. I was stupid.

Again.

I did not want to be back with the people on the beach. I did not want ice cream.

I wanted to see where the sea would take me. I just watched.

I sat, cross-legged, anonymous on an anonymous raft.

I remember feeling pulled, called, more in my right place drifting away than I would have been if I was on that beach full of empty faces.

Besides, I knew I could not swim.

The people turned into shapes. I could not hear them. I could not smell sunscreen or hot dogs. Too far away. Too far to shout. That was okay with me. I realized that too far was what I wanted.

I thought maybe the sea would take me someplace, anyplace, different. New.

Or maybe I would die. Maybe I would see the other side of the Mystery. One other side or the other. Either was better than a beach and a life populated by strangers.

I just watched.

I watched the red shape of the lifeguard in her regulation bathing suit on the white shape of her regulation platform move. The Shape got up, climbed down, went to the water’s edge. Stood. I watched it watching me. I don’t think I wanted it to see me.

I had broken rules. Done something, something else, wrong. Again. I thought the Red Shape might be mad at me.

I’d learned to be small, be quiet, get out of the way. They told me I was always in the way. I’d learned not to make trouble. They told me how much trouble I was.

I wanted the Shape to turn away. I hoped it would let me go wherever it was the sea was taking me. Not worth it. Not interested. Out of its jurisdiction.

But the Shape got closer. Became a person. Splashed and kicked and swam.

I knew I was in trouble. I knew it because it was taking a long time for her to get to me. I could not hide. Could not swim. Helpless. Again.

I just watched.

She reached me. Grabbed the stolen raft. Caught her breath.

“Are you okay, kid?” “I’m sorry.” “It’s all right. But you can’t be out this far. A boat will hit you or something.” “I’m sorry. I can’t swim.” “You just have to kick. Like this.”

I don’t think the old woman told anyone.

My eyes have adjusted to the night now. Now I see paisley waves and burning stars. The sea still calls. Pulls. There is life there, and adventure, and potential. The water I need to live and the salt I’m supposed to be.

I know I came from there. I know that it all did. I know that the ongoing is still ongoing.

I see it now.

But there is so much I can never see, never feel, never hear, never know.

So much is required of all this becoming. What do I do? What if I do it wrong?

Maybe I am still a helpless little sunburned boy on someone else’s raft, trying to get out of the way.

But maybe the people who actually love me want me in their way. Maybe the right people are the ones who want to be troubled by my trouble.

Maybe I just have to kick. Like this.

At the start of all things the Mystery breathed across the waters of life and death and adventure and fear and hope and potentiality and knowing and not knowing and the dance of becoming.

And it began. It is beginning now.

It can’t help itself. The Great Breath. Then potential becomes actual becomes experience. Shapes come to life. Again.

So I breathe.

In. The breath is me. The sea is me. The void is me. The memory is me. The Mystery is me. I let it fill me up.

Out. It goes, starts. The way gets out of me. A caretaker. Not the owner.

I let go.

Drifting? Pulled. Called. Another other side. Home.

Here is the beginning. Again.