I got the call early. I didn’t know it, though.
I was standing on the beach, watching the ocean, trying to feel the other side. I was old enough to know my ancestors had gotten on a boat there but too young to remember how old I was. I felt the power and force of the waves, the enormity of the world and how small I was in comparison.
Reaching as I was, stretching my spirit, I felt something. “Wow,” I thought. “Is that the other side?”
I was awestruck.
Suddenly, the wind came over me.
It blew me away. Well, that’s how the saying goes, but what it actually blew was everything away from me. Every façade. At that time, at that age, my world consisted solely of myself and my family, and the interpersonal relationships therein. The wind, with the boost of the waves, blew all of that away, so all that was left was me in my purest essence.
Maybe I was 3. That’s the age that’s coming to me now.
Little me and the mighty ocean. It changed how I saw everything.