All that was left of the ocean were the two tall, white pillars. That's what it looked like, at least, when you looked at the ocean from the Lisbon shoreline, straight through the two outposts standing like guards at the door of the thick River Tagus, water that sticks in like a thumb into Portugal and from there, out into the Pacific, water fading into the horizon. I stood on the shore and looked at my feet, raising my head slowly, looking at how the miniature shoreline faded into the water, first turning into a single stone step, and then another, each one more submerged in the depth of that endless well, each one flooded just a little more than the next.
"What are you looking at?" Kayla, my friend, travel companion, and fellow adventurer asked, puzzled. She had noticed that I was just staring at my feet and then the horizon, repeating the pattern until it went past the stage of curiosity and into that zoned out stage where awareness dims and awakens simultaneously, falling out of sync with the physical world but sparkling, scattering light on thoughts within. Sparkling...scattering light. That's why I had to leave the United States. Because my perception of my inner self had been a sparkling, scattered light at best. Going into my senior year of college, I talked myself in and out of possibilities of what the future might hold. Maybe grad school, maybe teaching, maybe social work, anything I put my mind to felt flat, lifeless, uninspiring.
And I felt completely unaware of the world. I had grown tired of Missouri, where I felt trapped in a room without windows and had explored every corner. And I knew how to be an American in America, where its easy to lose yourself in all that you take for granted, but what I really wanted to know was what submergence felt like. I wanted to know how the water feels on your skin when you dive in a pool that is not your own, whether to be a foreigner was an icy shock to your nerves or if it was more like a hot spring, warm, full of wisdom, soothing to the touch. I had dreams before arriving in Europe, where I would sit on a hillside in England alone at dawn and just look at the world. No book, no phone, not even a watch, and I would just look at the hills and simply allow myself to exist. Not as a Missourian, an American, a visitor, a student, but to simply think of myself without qualification, simply to think of myself as I was created. A person who was born to live.
"Nothing...There isn't anything there." I replied from a distance. And really, I wasn't far off in my statement. The pillars seemed to have been built and forgotten, meant for a ship that had made its last voyage years ago and either never returned or departed for good. And I couldn't get out of my head how beautifully placed those steps were, how they just faded into nothingness, as if the builder had paved those steps, carving out each one until he decided the point where he would force someone to swim, where land met sea and everything stable came undone and dissolved into the sea. Kayla walked over to where I was standing and stared for a little while with me. And then she turned to me, and, noticing that I had barely registered her appearance, asked with more concern. "Are you alright?"
"Yea, I'm fine." And at that moment, I wasn't really sure. All that I thought of was how I wanted to dissolve too, to reach that edge where land became sea, where comfort turned into uncertainty, the brink of everything that is known for the opaque midnight blue of the Tagus. I almost reached down to pull off my shoes, when my conscious came into play. What would Kayla think? How would I dry off, I didn't have a towel? This wasn't exactly a beach, more like a dock in the middle of nowhere. And although the pristine, blue water gave no hint, I'm sure most of Lisbon's dirt and grime had drifted over to this dock, seeing as how pedestrians near by were few and far between. My mind continued to rattle off the reasons why taking off my socks and shoes was a stupid idea in a foreign country when not on a beach. But my resistance to my conscience only became stronger. I felt as if I was playing an inner game of tug-of-war with my free-spirit and my conscience. And for what? The freedom to take off my shoes and walk into the river?
Finally, I told myself I was being ridiculous, and I put an end to my notions of dipping my feet in. Instead, I stood there and continued staring off into the distance while Kayla fumbled with putting new batteries in her camera, nervously glancing over at me every once in a while as if to make sure I was okay and that I hadn't suddenly decided to jump in the ocean. And when I made that decision, I realized what I had lost. An opportunity to break through the barriers, the qualifications imposed on me by my conscience and to simply be. Forget Kayla. Forget the Portuguese. Forget the water and what may lie in it. I was meant to soak my feet, soiled with preconceived notions of who I was and who I needed to be in the Tagus and to frankly, not give a damn what anyone else thought. To let go and simply let one's self be.
But I did what I feel a lot of people would have done. I walked away. And out of that close encounter with the ocean water, my feet dragged me away to follow Kayla into the city, to find a place with good wine and to step once again into the shroud of Lisbon at night.
As I walked away, I thought of that ancient dock one last time. The moment had all felt so Romantic, so imaginary. I gave the dock one last Romantic thought, as I thought of a long voyage and how it must have felt a sailor to touch that first stone step and push himself up to the surface, slowly emerging from the water. Flashes of that sailor reaching for his wrinkled and soggy love letter in his pocket as he got closer to the shore, rereading it for the fiftieth time as he prepared to embrace his love. And I saw him tying his boat to the post and stepping out into the cold, dark water, climbing each step as it took him one step closer to his heart's desire. I saw the water dripping off of his clothes, releasing the weight of years upon years of a wait. I saw his face with a scraggly beard, dark eyes, and a haggard complexion. And each step grew more confident, each stone felt the weight of his purpose under his boots and more certain that he had not arrived home in vain.
His soul was heavy with his immersion, but when he reached land, he emerged tired and weary, soaked with knowledge. I knew that this sailor was within me. But compared to me, he knew what he wanted. But I walked away. I realized what I had lost. He knew what it meant to simply be.
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