The story:
The storm had chased me awake long before sunrise. Something in its restless voice pushed me out of bed and down the sandy path to the beach. I told myself I was only going to watch the dawn, but part of me already knew what I was really looking for.
There it was.
The old root lay on the shore again – on its back this time, its tangled limbs reaching toward the pink, misty sky. I laughed softly, because I could almost hear the sea saying, “Up you go again.”
I approached it like greeting an old friend I never actually met. For years, this root and I have been in conversation, though neither of us speaks. I don’t know why I’m so attached to it. Maybe because I see myself in its stubborn presence. It should have been carried away long ago, but it always returns – changed, yet unmistakably the same.
“Rough night, huh?” I whispered, brushing sand from one of its branches.
The air still smelled like lightning. Mist curled around us, making the world feel dreamlike. The sea was calm now, pretending innocence after uproar. I sat beside the root, wrapping my arms around my knees. There were mornings when I felt exactly like this – rolled over by forces too big to resist, waking up in a shape I didn’t recognize.
The first time I saw the root, I thought it looked defeated. Now I see it differently. Every flip, every scrape, every new position is proof that it endured. It isn’t fragile. It’s a kind of driftwood warrior, softened but not surrendered.
“I get it,” I murmured to it. “Life turns you upside down until you understand something you didn’t before.”
A gull cried overhead. The tide was creeping closer, as if preparing to tug the root back into the water. I reached for my camera – not to own the moment, but to honor it. The shutter clicked. Then again.
A pastel dawn wrapped the scene in gentleness. For a second, everything felt in balance: the storm behind us, the sea breathing steadily, the root resting in quiet dignity. I felt the same stillness settling inside me. Maybe that’s why I come here – because in watching this root survive its endless tumbling, I remember that I can too.
When the first wave kissed the edges of the wood, I stood. “See you again,” I said, not as a wish, but as a certainty.
I walked back along the sand, leaving the root where the sea could find it.
It always does.
n.
Tuscany, Italy
© Michał Mierzejewski
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