Where the Land Meets the Sea
She ran along the beach because it suited her knees. She used to run on the roads, on dirt tracks, on rocky steps through forests and the like, but years of it had rendered the cartilage in her joints almost obsolete. It was a necessary choice, and she had been making necessary choices all of her life.
When she got to halfway, where the sand became rock and the rock quickly became whitewash, she would admit to herself, if it was a nice day, that she ran for the beauty of the beach. The wisps of the clouds, the shades of blue in the sea and sky, of the golden border between land and drowned land.
She never told this to anyone. It existed only in the briefest of thoughts, and only ever at the halfway mark. There, her energy reserves were still in good knick, the adrenaline pumping through her body steadily, the sweat making her skin glisten. Finshing her run, there was no time for beauty, only sucking in oxygen, wringing her arms of the sweat and downing water.
Beauty in her mind was not a necessity, it was a distraction, fit for those younger than her, with more time to waste on dalliances that could never last.
And so, she ran. The sliver of thought followed her, sweeping through her mind like a strong gust of wind as she reached the rock, and disappearing as quickly as the gannets from sight, as they flung themselves from the sky into the water in search of fish.
After a time, she let it fill her head. It never stayed with her long enough to carry back home with her; it fell from her mind like sand through outstretched fingers, but in that moment, the halfway mark, everything become still and clear. Her knees would silence their protest, the warmth in her cheeks would stretch to her ears and neck, and she didn’t see herself as separate from the landscape.
No, for a fleeting moment, she was part of it all, and she was beautiful.
Matt Querzoli wrote this. He hopes you enjoy. Follow his writing blog, his letters to strangers blog or his blog blog if you liked the post, or even the bloke himself if this tickled your proverbial pickle.
