open the eyes

There are moments of dismay and moments of frustration and all of them seem to come flying at me while I sit at my desk with my Nursing textbook laid spread-eagle out on the surface in front of me. There is so much that I want to do, so much that I want to see and here I am… trying in vain to push this information of Health Assessment through my mind so it makes cognitive sense.

I start to daydream, my imagination taking me off to a place where I feel I have been before. My eyes are closed, but the lack of one sense strengthens the ability of the others.

Though I cannot see, the red of the sun filters through my closed lids to my rods and cones beyond, interpreting the light as warmth and blanketing.

I can smell the sweet, slightly-synthetic smell of sun lotion that I had rubbed evenly over my exposed skin. I can smell the brine of the sea, rinsing through my nostrils like a flush of the ocean. I can smell the faint floral yet heady smell of the flowers that line the sand, rising up out of dense greenery.

I can feel the piece-y feel of the towel underneath me: I can feel where one stretch of coloured fabric ends and another begins, a myriad of patterns and shapes on the beach towel. I can feel the straps of my bathing suit against my shoulders, soft and elastic to allow movement. I can feel the coarse grains of sand against my heels that are hiding in small hollows in the sand. But most of all I can feel the sun as it wraps its arms around me.

I can hear the near roar of the waves as they spring for the shore, bubbling and boiling until they cascade over themselves and dance up the sand. I can hear the distant screech of a seagull as it calls to its mate while circling over the expanse of water below it. I can hear the wind quietly nuzzling the palm fronds; the very ones that give shade to the flowers in the green.

I can taste the salt of the air on my tongue as in inhale through my mouth. I can taste the slightly metallic taste of the smell of sunscreen. I can taste the lingering liquid in my mouth of cool, refreshing coconut and pineapple. It is soothing. It hides my troubled soul.

My eyes open and I am caught unaware of the majesty around me. Though I pay close attention to what I can sense about, the visual picture is so much more than I thought. The colours collide into each other: the emeralds and jades of the forrest, the peacocks and skies of the water, the soft, downy look of the clouds as they float lazily across the sky, bumping and combining with fellow clouds as they continue on their never-ending journey across the heavens. I peer at the flowers and have to blink in my defence: they are so perfect, so bright and so much more than beautiful that it seems a shame to cut them from their life to take them home. I sit up and I notice the colours in the sand surrounding my one, lone towel. There are 40 different hues of yellows and browns, oranges and greys. There are shells and pebbles, bits of coral and chunks of driftwood: yet the sand is so fine and soft. Beautiful.

From where I sit, I fall over, my face to the towel in awe. You died so I may live.

I shake my head from the dust of the daydream. Everything was so perfect, so complete that it felt me with a temporary emotion of rest. Calm. Understanding. I knew why things were the way they were for a short while but it was now beyond knowledge as I struggle to hang on to the emotion.