There is an ocean out there, I can see it from here ………
Posted By Annette on March 15, 2009
For a structure that was demolished as the sixties became the seventies, it sure does show up regularly in odd places. I don’t remember where I found this image, but it’s not one that was in my great postal collection – the one I sent with Larry to distribute to any Atlantians who might have shown up.
He did just that, and then he reported back that Martha had asked for another, which, of course, he gave her. I love that she wanted two. I love that he gave her two.
It will always be my most magical place, and all these years have proven to me that that will never change. It is still the only place that I yearn to return to. It is the only place to which I can never return.
So, I find a picture, an old picture – they’re all old pictures – and I look again at the window that belonged to my room, right in front, on the second floor, right in the middle, just below that small balcony. It looked out onto the beach, the surf, the sunrise.
Sometimes I feel like I have always stayed there, standing at that window, the sash thrown open, the cool salt breeze embracing me, the smell of the ocean and the sand and the shells, seaweed, denizens all around my head, and all I can see out there is the sun on the water, sparkling and calling to me, telling me that the world will soon carry me away to my life, but something vital will remain, will always belong to the Atlantis, to the Atlantic, to the sunlight, to that day when something happened, something changed, something remained, and even though I turned away and men brought the building down, I am still standing there, looking out at the light on the water, and there is no time, yesterdays were never to be, tomorrow never came, a little boy is tugging at my leg, people behind me are laughing and calling to me, and I am standing there, at the open window, looking at the sun on the water.
Then I turn away and pick up the little boy and carry him away from the window, never knowing that he will find another window in a place far away, and then I will remember standing at the Atlantis window, wide open, taking in the breath of life, watching the light dance on the roiling seas, and I know how that water moves, for I have moved like that in my life, but I was even more beautiful than the ocean, and we are still sparkling, still rolling in and rolling out, still loving our light on the water, as that beautiful old building looks out onto my life to come.
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