Today was a slow day for me. I feel the tiredness that has been chasing me finally catch up. Travelling by air, travelling by train… adjusting to different weather, food and time zones is all more tiring than I remember. So I gave myself permission to stay at home and move in and out of sleep the whole day.
I managed to wake up in time to have dinner at one of my favourite restaurants by the marina. It’s an Italian restaurant, and although I love the food it’s the service I like most. Last summer, I went to this restaurant regularly with my family and two of the girls working there were always so good to us. When I went back, I was really flattered to know that they remembered me.
The experience was slightly different, because I was dining inside this time rather than outside. The menu was also different, although just as delicious. It was warm inside, and I was seated by the window so I could watch people walk by. The yachts and still water of the bay, black as night, was in the background. I took another sip of my wine, a dry white. I don’t know the name because I let the waitress choose, and she made a good choice. I continued to watch as people slowly filled up the restaurant… families and groups of friends. I was the only one on my own. But the waitress, she handled all of us seemingly effortlessly and with a smile.
I wanted to stay longer, but I decided that the wine was starting to get to my head… so I’d take advantage of the tiredness and start walking home. I took a route by the coast. Walking outside, I could suddenly feel the chill. I closed up my jacket, gathered my scarf closer to my neck and walked faster… maybe if I sped up it would take the edge off. I walked down the street, past the wooden pier and line of yacht shops and restaurants. I watched all the people inside, warm and living their life in total ignorance of my existence. I wondered to myself, how similar is their life to mine?
As I walked on, I finally approached a sandy shoreline. The air didn’t feel so cold anymore, just fresh. I could smell salt and seaweed. There were not many cars on the road at this time of year, so I could also hear the waves. I stopped and maybe time did too. The light had become so dim, it almost seemed as if I were in a black and white movie. I looked back and saw the glow of yellow lights between the silhouette of palm trees. That sound, that smell and that yellow and black vision before me… I stopped for no other reason than to bask in how it made me feel.
It was a moment of nostalgia, flowing over. I stood there remembering the past from the vantage point of my new self, especially times when I’d been at the beach at night. Not only in France, but in Australia, and other countries too. In the Philippines with a group of strangers I’d just met, admiring the stars and bioluminescence. Along the channel in the United Kingdom, where I was alone on a pebbled beach admiring the way the light of the full moon played on the rippled surface of the sea. In Singapore with a man I’d met only a few days before, who took my hands under the warm water to pick up a starfish for the first time in my life. The sound of the sea is always the same, no matter how different the moment has been.
During the day, it sparkles azure blue and extends out to the horizon like a gust of fresh air. During the night, it’s a giant black void that whispers your memories to you like a story before bed. These kind of moments steal us away from the little practical things we are often pre-occupied with in life. It reminded me that there is one thing in the world that is so big it connects us all. Whether it’s through a river, a sea or an ocean. No matter where I am, I know that if I am by the sea then I will be close to the ones I love.
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