Thursday Re-View — My Vacation Within

The itinerary of the 7-day cruise says I visited Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, St. Kitts, Iles des Saintes and Martinique.

I say I visited the bow netting on the clipper ship, the empty deck at night and the inside of myself. My own brand of vacation in the beautiful islands of the Caribbean. Into the islands of my Self.

This trip was not to sight see or interact with lots of people. This was to rejuvenate.

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The quarter moon barely lights the sky as the midnight hour approaches.
The stars, bearers of sparkling light, are thrown across the velvet blanket above.
The waves, dark as the darkest night, pound against the steel hull,
crashing in caps of white froth over and over again.

I sit alone, wind whipping hair across my face as the spray moistens my skin.
A baptism, of sorts, in this, my communion with the sea.

The ship pounds into the swells, up and down, then side to side
as the canvas sails slap and the rigging creaks and moans.
The ocean’s power reminds me of my insignificance as we surge across the wine-dark dark sea.
The ship upon the waves is but a small thing, and I am smaller still.

I sit alone, wind whipping hair across my face as the spray moistens my skin.
A baptism, of sorts, in this, my communion with the sea.

I am not thinking, only feeling.
Total peace and contentment, all alone in the night.
Nothing else exists in these elemental moments;
’tis but woman and the sea.

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In the busyness of those ordinary days, I close my eyes and imagine my Self back on deck.

I sit alone, wind whipping hair across my face as the spray moistens my skin.

The ordinary is now extraordinary. I am at peace. I am free.

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