Daily meditation -- the sound of the board slicing through the water as the sea propels me on its modest waves. The silence is reassuring. Out here, there is nothing but me and It. We can both forget our crammed souls, the ocean and I. It can forget the fish swimming under its skin. I can put aside these thoughts that have been swimming in my mind.
     Give it to the sea. Its shoulders are wide. Let it hold your burdens.
     There is nothing I can do about Davydd. And there is nothing that I should do, apart from love him. The rest is up to him. I can no more control him or his destiny than I can the ocean beneath me.
     I have been on this wave before. In California, every sunset I would go to the coast and try to still my mind and heart. Every night, I would take the board to the water and head to where the water swells. I would let it carry me a while, on crests of waves, fingers skimming to curling waves. And every night I sat on the beach for those moments of solace that the city could not provide.
     I thought of calling Ian. I should have called him. What kept me
from it? My pride. My wounded ego and feelings. These cost me forty years with him, and any stretch of time is too long.
     So, Guillaume, here you are again on the sand, dripping with the remnants of an ocean. Will you let your pride, your wounded feelings cost you again?