text: The Sea “Have you found yourself yet?” “No. But that's okay. Who I am isn’t concrete, it never was.” I stood up the hills of York, looking out upon the rolling fields and grass covering the world below my heels. A farm off in the distance puffed smoke like an old pipe left in a man's mouth. The ends of my jacket fluttered off into the winds, my eyes not caring I stared back off into the grassy sea. “Then what was the point of all that sailing? Every week you spent far from the shores out beyond the thin white line that closes off all that I can see?” “Self discovery. I never found who I am but I discovered there was something there to begin with. I stared into the largest mirror on the planet and guess who stared back? None other than me.” his clothes were dirty. Covered in filth and mud from working in the quiet pastures and fields sowing whatever he could to give back to his mother in that quiet farm, off in the distance that puffed smoke like a pipe left in a man's mouth. “Was it beautiful out there, father?” “It was as if I was staring into an endless mine of lapis. A glistening and glimmering sea filled with adventure and possibility. But adventure gets boring. Endless running and seeing new but old places. The best parts were the silent times. The times where there was nothing to do but sit and stare out among the waters and bask in the infinite expanse of nothing. The ocean is a beautiful wasteland.” I could smell it now. The salt on the air, water lapping at my feet as I let them dangle off the side, the wind carrying salt and sand off into its home once more. But I am here, standing very much on the shore, watching the sea of green waves ripple like the ocean tides, watching the clouds float past a farm in the distance that puffed out smoke like a pipe left in a man’s mouth. “What came of your father?” “He had come with me, out to seek himself like we all do. Out to learn what he is. I remember how he would laugh at my staring at my reflection in the waves, how he would teach me to fish over the side of the boat, how he would tell stories from his past to me as we laughed together. And finally after all that he lay under the mast and looked up at the clouds overhead. He asked me to bring him his pipe and I fetched it for him. He lit it up and said to me: “I have found who I am. And what I am. Out here, amidst the mystery and majesty, amidst this grand body of water we call a sea, I found what I was looking for all this time. And that thing was me.” He lay his eyes to rest, and as he drew his last breath, the pipe puffed out smoke as it was left in a man’s mouth.” Sorry if the formatting is a little rough, still getting used to writing.