The Distance Between Shores

The horizon is a line we draw to keep the world manageable. We stand on the shore and look out, convinced that what lies beyond is a mirror of our own intentions. But the water does not care for our maps. It moves with a rhythm that predates our arrival and will outlast our departure. There is a profound loneliness in watching a vessel move across the blue, a silence that stretches between the hull and the seabed. We are always arriving, or we are always leaving. Rarely are we simply present in the middle of the expanse, suspended between the safety of the land and the uncertainty of the deep. To watch from the beach is to acknowledge that we are tethered to the earth, while others have chosen to trust the currents. Does the water feel the weight of the wood, or is it merely a brief interruption in the tide?

Stefanie Laroussinie has captured this quiet tension in her image titled Yacht at Epi Island. It reminds me that we are all just passing through someone else’s horizon. Does the sea look the same from the deck as it does from the sand?