Impermanence

Scorching sun tempered only by the breeze and the cool water. The cicadas drone in homage to the unrelenting heat. Water so clear and blue against the pinkish white sand that it pulls at the center of one's being in an invitation to immerse in its briny tonic.  It is at once soothing and haunting. There is a quality just out of view of the directly observed beauty that is a reminder of the unforgiving and unattached nature of this place. The sand dollar bleached white, the conch shell beached at low tide, the teak on the deck of my boat, weathered and grey under the torment of the sun, even the tide itself is a reminder - nothing is permanent. I can feel the starkness of the place wresting from my pale knuckles the very idea of myself. I see the grey of my hair in the weathered teak, and the frailness of my physical being in the broken shells strewn about as I sit waiting for the morning stiffness to pass with the incoming tide. Just as I would have preferred to freeze my advance in age at a more youthful point, I wish I could hold the vastness of this place at once in my mind. But it defies me each time and is relegated to the impermanence of memory, dull and misshapen. Like the cloud of stars that appears each night, a number of those that we see ceased to exist millions of years ago, but the remaining light is just reaching us. We too burn bright for a time and become attached to the idea that the light will continue to burn after we are gone. To what end?

The point is that there is no point. There never has been and never will be. So, restore the grey weathered wood to a bright new oiled condition. Scrub the rust from the "stainless" steel to restore the shine.  And on the change of tide, do it again, not because you should, but because you can.