What Came Back

For about a month the shape of the day was set by yoga and two swims. Out to the red flags and back. Deep enough that halfway out I could turn and see the coast at a distance.

I have been away from home for two months. Not on holiday. The office runs on the same clock, and the day still begins at the same hour, but the room around it is different.

Something happens in that stretch of water.

Getting back to shore depends on me. On not panicking. On knowing that if I get tired I can float. That the water will hold me if I let it.

A few jellyfish stings along the way, to remind me the ocean is alive. And that I am alive.

The word for what that returns is sovereignty. Not the political kind. The private kind. The one that gets quietly conceded when the days are all obligation and never solitude.

Some of what came back has cost me. I gave myself more permission than I usually do. With the water. With a motorbike on sandy roads. One of those decisions I paid for. Two weeks now, bandaged and waiting.

My wife and daughter arrived a few days ago. The beach is a few hundred meters away. We have not made it yet.

It will still be there next week.