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These and more are the Sea

The pebbles on the riverbank are my grief.
Carried along under the surface where nobody could see them.
Until the river spat them out.Some of them are interesting: worn smooth by the current and patterned by their formation. The understanding we all carry, that life is what it is, and sometimes the unthinkable happens.Everybody's river contains a lot of pebbles. We often unknowingly sift through the grief of others, marveling at the beauty of the stones without knowing their source.Tragedy softens some and hardens others, makes us try on new clothes. When it feels like everything is already broken, it's interesting to see what comes undone.Me? I'll pick up the stones and examine them. Part of me wants to skip them across the wide body to the other bank. Watch them disturb the surface tension: temporary ripples broken up and carried away by the river's motion.But I'll put them back, knowing that everything has a place until it doesn't. One day the river will swell and pull the pebbles under.Transported again on the current, to confuse fish and churn up sediment, down where we cannot see them. Seeing only their effects upon the river. Murkiness, muddiness. A heaviness born of mass and presence, which dissipates at the delta, where the river flows into the sea.The timeless sea. Ancient and formless, taking on the forms of its containers. Forming the borders of our world.How much grief has flowed out into the sea?Only to be ground up and returned to us as sand. Pretty beaches, which we've all enjoyed.Time may heal all wounds but the sea redistributes grief into useful things.Washing us ashore on the beaches of our friendships, returning with the sand and pebbles to our component parts. Being human because we’re human. Being held and understood without having to explain.These and more are the sea.