The thoughts come as the waves build up, meandering like the clouds in the vast sky. I breathe. A long, slow breath!… My mind wanders to moments lived and gone by. The journeys taken and the journeys that could not be. All the while just the couplet in my mind: “Two roads diverged in a wood, And I took the one less travelled by…” with a question hovering: “Will it make all the difference?”
There are so many questions. So many answers waiting to be discovered. Which one is right? Is there a right? But now, like right now, does it really matter to get all the answers? Can’t it be just put aside for some time else, some place else?
The noise of the waves silences the noise inside me … calming the turmoil as the outside engulfs me in itself — drenched, drowned, drifted away! — as I sit on the rocks staring blankly at the sea. Watching the waves forming … coming with a gush and dying at the rocks. Time stops right there at that spectacle and yet I am reminded of its flow by the very flow of the waves.
A different wave each time, a different time each wave.
Time froze, right? Yes. And time flowed immeasurably? Yes. Both Yes. That was the magic of it. The completeness. The infiniteness of it, taking me away from all the chaos, the turbulence of my thoughts — to just watch the waves, savor the moment, and feel.
It is so uncommon. To be there. Just. To actually be alive to the time present and forget about the trails of the past and the paths of the future. That moment of serenity. Meditative? Kind of.
As I looked beyond… to the horizon… sea merging with the sky… a beginning of yet another contemplative voyage that is to be taken some time else. For now, the waves come to me as I wave back to them. And they go just as seamlessly. And all that remains is the water, the feeling, the bliss. Now.
Simran Doshi 