The Weight of Footprints

We walk until the tide claims the path behind us. It is a strange habit, this need to look for what is already gone, or perhaps for what was never there to begin with. The sand holds a memory for a few seconds, a brief indentation of weight, before the water smooths it into nothingness. We are always searching. We look at the horizon as if it might offer an answer, but the horizon is merely a line drawn by the eye to keep the world from spilling over. There is a specific kind of loneliness that only exists in the presence of another. It is not the absence of people, but the shared realization that we are walking toward an end we cannot see. Does the ocean care that we are looking? Or is the silence of the water the only truth we are permitted to keep?

Eyad Al Shami has captured this quiet search in his image titled Two Friends. The vastness of the shore makes the figures seem both small and infinite. Do you find comfort in being lost together?