Stability

She felt a restlessness that caught her by surprise and threw her off balance. Her chest was tight again and her breathing chaotic. She roamed her horizon for something, or someone to blame but found no offence nor event to explain the feeling. She simply wanted more. She wanted to feel more intensely. Feel what? She was not sure.

But, she had a sense that she wanted to be swept up in the big waves: not the still waves of the shore that she was accustomed to now but the big waves: the waves that scared her and the waves she did not know how to handle.

She remembered the big waves from all of the summers. She had never really learned the skills to handle the big waves, with a board or her own body. Instead of riding the waves, she let them toss and turn her until they broke over her and she could come up for air: gasping and pulling her hair away from over her eyes. It seemed to her she would never tame those waves, and yet she went back for one more try, every now and again. In her mind, she was trying yet again to ride the big waves, all by herself.

A memory popped into her head. They had been up North and she felt out of control. Her owner had got very cross with her and before he took her to the beach, he had slapped her hard and she wore a red mark to that beach. She was embarrassed to admit even to herself that it calmed her. He took her deep into the water with her board, where the big waves lay and he put her on her board and pushed hard.

She was riding the wave and she felt elated to be doing so. She had needed some help to ride that wave but even so, now she was triumphing over the wave! She felt so close to him for giving her that; her stability.

She was sometimes restless. She was sometimes saved from herself.