So I was at the beach a few nights ago. I made up my mind a few weeks ago to visit one of my favorite beaches before I go so I could say some goodbyes to my hometown. Not that I'm never gonna come back, it just might be a while before I live here again, if ever. I went to the tidepools at La Jolla and watched the sky and the waves breaking over the rocks. I wasn't feeling too good as I drove there but as soon as I parked my bike and started walking to the beach I couldn't stop smiling. The wind was blowing and it was cold, but I looked up into that black sky and felt completely free. I guess that's why I'm leaving. I stared out into the blackness for a while and thought about my family and my friends and the people I care about. I thought about how all my relationships are in my head and I'll always have them with me because of that. I felt connected to everything. I felt absolutely insignificant, and that made me feel good. I felt like a god and that made me smile too.

Eventually I got too cold and went to a coffeeshop for some tea. I just happened to bring my Walt Whitman reader with me that day. I've been skipping around as I read it, and imagine my surprise when I opened it up to this poem:

"On The Beach At Night Alone"

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the
clef of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All indentities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

I don't believe in magic or mystical coincidences or anything like that, but I'll say this: after seeing what I saw and reading those words, I'm ready. I'm free. Beyond any contraints, be they emotional, monetary, governmental, or whatever... I'm ready.