homesick

She looked at me in that way she does sometimes, slightly bemused, and I wanted so badly to make it comprehensible to her. The space, the sheer space that is liberating and cloying all at once. The emptiness leaves me frantic, craving her touch. A voice. If not her, anybody. But there aren’t any more like us there.

Sometimes I crave the sun so badly, I feel like my skin is turning in on itself. Sometimes I want to be in the sea again, battered and exhausted, with the sand scratching up my knees and elbows, and the waves coming too fast for me to get a good deep breath in, but that feeling of infinity all around me. Fighting warm, fresh waters that would kill me honestly, against the rocks, with the undertow, but not from lead poisoning.

I was looking for Karen Zoid on YouTube, and I found this video of a whole bunch of South African musicians singing Johnny Clegg’s “Great Heart” for the starfish charity. The video opens with a young women throwing stranded starfish back into the sea, making a difference to “that one”. I remember watching a woman do that with sea snails on a beach one evening and knowing with that utter certainty that one encounters occasionally, that that moment of beauty was going to change my life.