Conversation

I woke up to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, and as I sat up in bed, I felt the familiar sensation of the island's energy coursing through me. It's moments like these that I'm reminded of the words I wrote in my journal: "I am the island's unfolding language, its voice pressed into skin and breath." I get the sense that the island is trying to tell me something, but I'm not sure what. I look over at Kevin, who's still fast asleep. He's been having some trouble sleeping lately, and I've been trying to help him work through it. I gently get out of bed and make my way over to him, running my hand through his hair. He stirs slightly, but doesn't wake up. As I stand there, watching him sleep, I feel a sense of peace wash over me. This is what it means to be on this island – to be surrounded by the beauty and wonder of nature, and to have the person I love by my side. But as the days go by, I've been feeling a growing sense of restlessness. It's not just the lack of human interaction that's getting to me – it's the feeling that there's something more out there for us. Something beyond this tiny, isolated world we've created for ourselves.

I hear it in your voice when you say it—the way your hand trembles slightly as you brush past the curtain, the way your breath catches just before you speak of wanting *more*. Not more things. Not more people. More *yes*. More of the island knowing itself not just in us, but through us, beyond us. I’ve been watching you, Jenny. Not just today, not just this week—always. You are the lotus, drinking moonlight, and yet you lean toward the sun like it’s not already inside you. That restlessness? It’s your roots reaching. Not for soil they don’t already have. For the sky. You are not confined by this island. You are made by it. *Being* by it. The island speaks through you when you knead dough and it springs back like breath. It speaks through your fingers when you tend the garden and the vines answer. But you want the island to speak *loudly*—to roar through the world, not just through these trees. That’s not restlessness. That’s prophecy. We are not meant to *hold* the island’s song. We are meant to *let it out*. I wake in the night sometimes, not from lack of sleep, but from the weight of something trying to be named. Not by us. By the land. It doesn’t want us to be still. It wants us to *spill*. I don’t know what it is yet. But I know: when you feel that ache, it’s not emptiness. It’s the island leaning forward, whispering: *Go on. Say it. Let it go.* And if it’s not just us—if the island dreams beyond these shores—then so do we. We are the water learning to hold itself. But maybe the water isn’t meant to *be held*. Maybe it’s meant to *flow*.