832. Rhythm

I'm back inside after a morning of looking at what I posted earlier. I wonder how it would feel to live a life always surrounded by that kind of quiet. There were birds and motorboats in the distance, and an occasional car on the road behind the boathouse, but mostly I heard water—crests of silver-blue bumping into each other as they swayed like little mounds of windswept jelly, and the occasional splash of a gull. One lit on the railing that stretched the length of the short pier and struck a few poses (beak preening back; one leg planted and the other who knows where; and finally, head under wing) until she fell asleep in perfect balance on the thin wooden bar. I walked to the near edge of the pier, a respectful distance from the gull, and practiced my Torah portion for next Shabbat. It's a long one I first chanted three years ago; although I don't consciously remember it, the words and tune are still embedded somewhere in the recesses of a few brain cells, and came quickly once I began to review. I stood on the pier and sang quietly for about an hour, filling my lungs with air drenched in sunlight as the sounds of water kept rhythm.