There are some moments, some scenes, smells, sounds, feelings that you wish you could capture in their entirety to relive, to experience again once the moment and sensation has passed. They don't come around too often, and when they do they tend to be unique, the type that never could be recreated. Not because the circumstances won't allow it, but because of the way in which you experience it, who you are at that precise point in time when it arrives.
As I write this, the old fashioned way with paper and pen, I'm in one of those moments. Nothing can improve it; I wouldn't want to try and improve it. Nothing could detract from it.
I'm going to attempt to capture it through words, having already attempted through picture. Forgive me if it becomes pretentious, wandering, nonsensical. Let's just see where my pen takes me.
I'm sat. Beneath me and around me is a sprawl of black volcanic rock. I've found a spot with no juts, with the perfect footrest at the perfect distance and at the perfect height in front of me.
The sun, which has been beating down on us all day, is starting to weaken on Round Seventeen, and is starting its descent back to the horizon. My back is to our villa, which lays just behind me. The door to our backyard is open, and I know it to be framing my youngest brother as he relaxes listening to music by the pool. My other brother is somewhere behind me, also on the rock, reading. His girlfriend is dozing, on a sofa inside the villa.
In front of me, the sea is breaking on the lava flow, its persistence building up as the tide starts to come in and the slight breeze that's roughing my hair picks up.
There are four sailboats in front of the horizon ahead, white sails chasing each other, a little like a school of fish we followed earlier in the day whilst snorkelling. A few seagulls are showing off overhead, surfing the wind currents that I can't see.
It smells of the sea; slightly fishy, slightly rancid, slightly salty, all lying just beneath your breathe, catching you unawares every now and then as the wind changes direction.
Camera beside me. Music in one ear. The sound of the waves breaking, the wind, and kids playing further down the shore in the other.
All sense of stress, worry, self-doubt, self-consciousness has slipped off. My mind feels completely disconnected from my body. But at the same time, it feels like — for the first time in a long time — mind and body are in sync.
Breathing feels effortless. You pause every now and then to take in the world around you, remind yourself to savour it.
I turn around, and see I'm now alone. And it feels right that there's no-one else here, no-one sharing this moment, this experience. And not for the first time over the last few years, I relish the freedom of thought, of feeling, of experience, you can have when alone.
I'd been sat here for what must have been half an hour, writing something else entirely, absorbed, before I became aware of the peace I was feeling.
Living in the city, immersed in day-to-day life, with work, money worries, always around people, you can so quickly forget who you are when all that is stripped away, who you are at your core. Even in those moments when you manage to snatch some 'me' time, you're still aware of the buzz going on just outside your door, the other end of your phone, and you carry that buzz around with you.
And so sat here, now, just you, you realise. So what if you're not quite as fit as you should be? So what if your weight isn't quite what you feel it could be? If you aren't quite up-to-speed with the latest on the economic crisis, haven't seen as many plays or been to as many exhibitions as you could, that your hair seems to have taken on the appearance of a wet poodle?
This sense of peace with yourself, with the world around you; if you could capture it, take it with you wherever you go, to be able to close your eyes and relive that sense of freedom of self that you felt, how much calmer would your feelings towards life be? And how much more switched on would you be to that around you, to that which matters and that which does not?
So we are who we are, we love who we love, we enjoy what we enjoy. How hard is it to recognise this in ourselves, to respect it in others? We each have our strengths, our weaknesses, fears, joys. Unless we can find the headspace to explore them in ourselves, unless we can be open to sharing them, to being trustful of those we spend our days with, will we ever be able to recapture this peace when back in the tempest of our 'normal' lives?
Why is it so hard to say, 'This is me. And this is you. I'm not perfect, but then perfection exists only as an abstract ideal anyway. Let's strip away our agendas, our walled selves, our distrust, and just be.'
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| Not the best photo, but a photo nonetheless |
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