She stood on a beach, where wasn’t exactly important to her, just that the white sand was powdery and soft between her toes. Her bare back was exposed to the sun, but it wasn’t a harsh summer sun, it was the warm welcoming sun that pulled her into its embrace and made her feel alive. She didn’t really know why she was at the beach, or how she had gotten to that particular spot, but that also didn’t really matter. It was the fact that she was here that mattered, why it mattered was a mystery, but she felt as if when the time was appropriate she would know.
Her blue eyes were lightly lidded against the breeze that was coming in from the water. She wore a white skirt made of some light fabric that normally played about her ankles as she walked, but now billowed out behind her in the breeze. It was a striking picture she painted, standing there looking out over the water, the salt-tinged breeze kicking back that skirt, her blond hair slightly damp, as if she had recently been in the water she was surveying. She hadn’t been, of course, but it really didn’t matter if she had or not, just that she was here, her toes wriggling in the sand, and her eyes staring out across the vastness that was the ocean.
She realized that she was smiling, but didn’t know why. It occurred to her that she really wasn’t sure about a lot of things, who she was, where she was, or even why she was. She knew, though, that something had inspired her to smile, and was still doing so. She also knew that she was OK with not knowing what she was smiling about, that eventually she would become aware of it. Her thoughts quieted as she stood in the breeze, she closed her eyes and lifted her face towards the sun, which stood in the sky slightly behind her. She felt the warmth on her face, on her bare shoulders, and it made the smile she wore on her face that much more enjoyable.
She felt the urge to walk, so walk she did. She began by placing one foot in front of the other, taking steps slowly, letting the sand sink between her toes before picking her foot up again to take a step. She thought to herself about different things as she walked. She thought the crabs just at the edge of the water had a funny look about them, the way they scuttled side to side. Laughingly she did the same, mocking their movements quickly back and forth. Her smile grew larger, and she knew what it was to be happy.
The white sand continued in each direction as far as she could see, in front of her and behind her. Nothing broke the landscape, no buildings, not trees, just hills of sand around the beach, and a flowing ocean that stood to her left as she walked along. She was unsure as to where she was going, but something told her, perhaps her intuition, that it was not time to stop, that her walking would serve a purpose soon. She thought again, looking up at the clouds, that they seemed to have the shapes of animals. She didn’t know the names of the animals, but she knew what they looked like. It was curious to her that she knew things, but did not know them. She knew her smile was a good thing, but not for what, or whom, the smile was.
Perhaps the smile was for someone, she thought. Thinking that thought made her realize that the smile was, indeed, for someone, but she could not place who that person might be. She had no real idea of who she knew. She was aware that she knew people, like the image of a kind old man dipping some kind of liquid that tasted as if it came from the sea into a bowl, or the young children she remembered playing a game involving rocks, but she didn’t know who they were. She knew they were not the reason for her smile, and that was the important thing to know.
She stopped for a moment, and took a hard look up the sand, and realized there was a speck of something standing out against the white sand. Urgency suddenly pulled her thoughts toward the idea that there was something different up ahead, other than crabs and seashells. She quickened her pace, single steps that took moments before, tarrying along the beach, were now taking seconds. She drew closer, and saw that this was a person. There was someone here, she could see arms and legs, but nothing more. The person she was looking at recognized her shape as well, and they began to surge forward with just as much urgency as she had.
She was running now, every giant leap forward brought sand up into the air. Her steps were bounding leaps, and her breath began to build in her chest. She gasped in the deep salt air, and it made her fingers tingle. Her eyes strained to see more detail of the figure that seemed to be so far away, yet close to her. She could now see that it was a man, and he was running her way as well. She began to desperately run as hard as her body would allow. Her legs began to burn and ache, but she refused to know the pain, just as she did not know who it was she was running to. Her skirt fanned out behind her as she ran, the wind blew through her hair and she was exhilarated, she felt as if she were truly alive, realizing that before she hadn’t felt so real.
Her heart pounded in her chest, but she pressed on and as she drew ever closer to this mysterious figure she realized he held a smile as big and bright as hers. She wondered if he had been as lost as she was, if he knew the things she did, or rather didn’t know the things she didn’t know. Was this the person she was smiling for? Was she the reason for his?
Then they were there, together. Standing before each other, hearts racing and breath being gasped through smiles. She laughed first, and he followed when he heard her. For what seemed to her like hours they stood there, silent, staring at each other, just as she had stared out at the sea. She knew then that she had found her purpose for being here, that he was the reason she was smiling. He reached to her as she realized this and she knew, this one thing she knew, was that he had come to the same conclusion. Their hands touched, bare skin of their arms sliding against each other, as they came to together in an embrace.
At that moment the world around her seemed to fade away, the sound of the waves was no more, the sand between her toes was gone, the smell of the salt in the air had disappeared. She was aware of only him, and she was sure that he was aware only of her, pressed against each other. She had found herself and her life.
It was a smile for someone.
