This morning, early, as I emerge from underground onto the tony avenue where I spend my office days, the light is clearly growing brighter and stronger with the season. Behind the Arc de Triomphe stretches a bold swath of pink sky.
It’s gone when I pass again hours later. But spring is irrefutably near.
Crossing a broad paved plaza, I think of the beach.
The waves rise and fall, each different – in shape, size, intensity, density, color, weight – and each not separate from the one watery ocean.
Their causes and effects differ: Low tide results from different conditions and has different consequences than high tide. A tsunami effects the environment differently than a gentle lapping on the shore.
Yet it’s all one body of water.
Sometimes I see mainly the waves. Sometimes I see mainly the immense ocean. And sometimes I experience waterwavesocean, not shallow or deep, both shallow and deep, fathomless to the horizon at my feet.
Like a day at the office.