I am the mountain that must be moved by faith.
We stood by the shoreline on a gray day steeped in mist and flecked by rain, our umbrellas leaned out well ahead of us against the wind that drove the waves to whitecaps and broke them on the pilings. I was pushed, and pushed back, against the cold and wind and rain, against the doubts and fears, and I felt, at that moment, there were none.
I felt the challenge on the waves and in the air. I felt the dare of the horizon.
We have to fight. I would have to fight the waves, step deep into the slate beneath the steel and fight to find the end. But I knew that I could make it if I would only enter the water, and that the far invisible shore would not be where I stopped. Let the wind blow, I thought, I will not fall; let the rain fall, I will not slip. Let the waters even close above my head, sealing out the sky, I will not drown. I will find the ground beneath my feet and walk with the weight of the ocean on my shoulders.
I felt this. I believed it. I believed the world would not be enough to stop me if I raised a hand to it, that I could be the piling that broke apart the waves. I saw at the horizon, the vanishing point of earth and heaven, nothing to fear. The wind I stood to contest embraced me, and in my heart I loved it back.
No one knows yet--perhaps I do not know myself--what I have in me, but it's bigger than I am, and has begun to stir. It cannot sleep forever. When it wakes I hope it will consume me, burn away the cell in which it grew until too large to be contained.
As I turned away, and my eyes again fell on the city, I thought in some small measure I had turned away from the best version of myself, for the confidence did not turn with me. The Whatifs were waiting on the bridge above the highway and at the crosswalks. They whispered. I heard them.
But I felt the tremblings at the shoreline. I felt the strength we have. It will not be long now.
It must not be long.