The island pt. 4

Like the sun coming up the following morning, I was suddenly back in the airport hotel, attempting to process what I had just witnessed. Just as fast as I had been transported back to Kentucky, with a blink, I was back lying next to Deb. The crickets continued to sing their hearts out, and the sound of the surf continued in its organic liquid rhythm. There was a comfort in the feeling of the familiarly anomalous situation that my mind had drifted off to, and where I currently was. In that place, beside Deb, I had a peculiar feeling wash over me. It was one that I had encountered many times. One of the stark instances when this feeling had occurred was on a day of outreach with two other people on the streets of Boston. We had parked the outreach van next to the Backbay T stop on Dartmouth Street. After leaving the van, we walked down the street and eventually ended up across from the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, in a green area where people would often lounge. In that moment, we witnessed paramedics working on a person whom we had most likely walked past and even engaged with on different occasions. As we stood and watched, they furiously did chest compressions until eventually stopping. It was very evident that the person was gone. We left the place, in silence, to continue outreach, and forty minutes later, when we passed back through, everyone was gone. It was as if nothing had happened. People sat on benches near the spot not even realizing, most likely, that someone had died just a few feet from where they sat a mere forty minutes prior. The process of going from one extreme to another. How often is it realized, acknowledged, or even processed? And there I was, having witnessed the contradictory destruction of water, and yet could still be lulled into a slumber by the same paradoxically controlled sound below me.

We finished our time on that bench and packed our few things into our backpacks. As we did this, I mentioned to Deb that, having looked at the map, we should consider taking a different route back to the dock. I explained that the path I had been looking at looped around and did not seem like it would be much different from what we had already walked. After hesitating briefly, Deb agreed that it might be a nice addition. Standing up, we began walking towards where the path was supposed to be. Before long, we were back at Potato Cove. This can't be correct I thought to myself. After telling Deb to hold up, I looked at the map on my phone. Sure enough, we had walked past it. We turned around and headed back. Just before where we had been sitting, was the path. There was no marker and one could tell that it was not travelled much. 'Well, here goes nothing,' I thought to myself. Of course that is not what I said out loud to Deb. 'Wow! This looks incredible,' I said out loud.

Now at this point, there are a few things that needed to be pointed out. First, there had been no sign. Secondly, the trail was overgrown. Thirdly, while I had looked at the map correctly, yes, we were on the correct trail. It would have been aptly appropriate if I had looked closer at it from a topographical view, something that would come up in future conversations between Deb and myself. Lastly, maybe we should have been happy with the dream like hike up to that point and not pushed on, especially since Deb had only been out of a walking boot for two weeks.

'Misery loves company but company does not reciprocate.'