Maybe the Miracle is Us

I seem to find myself here, by this little sliver of coast, in the in-between moments of all my journeys. I'm never here long enough to settle, but even for a few days, I am swallowed up by the magic that is this place.

Nestled between six crystalline shores, the lullaby of waves echoes through the trees, their rise and crash like thunder beneath my bare feet as I walk upon the rugged, untouched wild ground.

I feel cradled between the ink-blue vastness, the soft white sand, and an emerald maze—sweet eucalyptus and crickets in the morning. A sanctuary. Saltwater-flecked skin and sandy unmade sheets. One hundred and twelve humans in the village. Nomads with foreign tongues and kindness stitched into the backpacks they've traveled with pass through; the smell of coffee lingers from a camper van spray-painted with rainbows parked on the corner, a collection of world map stickers on the back window.

Early morning, kangaroos and their joeys graze among the pastel-coloured beach shacks, and rainbow birds are hand-fed. The distinct call of the black cockatoos cracks the silence as they carry a shadow flying overhead. The dogs run freely into the water. Traces of salt linger on my lips when I kiss their fur.

In the late afternoon, I slowly swing hidden in the hammock, watching the waves kiss the shoreline goodnight as the moon rises, pouring liquid silver onto the horizon. The stars are clear and bright, and it's quiet. When the wind picks up, it howls. When it rains, the ocean is bathwater warm.

Sometimes I feel far away, muted from the hustle and noise of the city until I realise perhaps that is what saves me—knowing no matter how far away I travel, the sea carries me to all I have lost, and no matter how I shift, grow, or break, she will always remember me.

Here, I remind myself to collect wildflowers, to bathe in the rain. I answer questions with more questions. Saltwater is medicine to heal wounds when we taste tears whispering memories through our lips at 2 am. None of us really know what we're doing or where we're heading. All we know for sure is that these moments remind us we’re no longer numb; we’re more alive than ever when we allow ourselves to feel.

Here, I am learning to live more simply—to sit by the window when it rains and read books, losing myself in worlds and stories I’ll never be tested on. To paint, write, and take pictures because I want to, not because I have something to prove. To express, not impress. To listen to my body, to fall asleep when the moon is high and wake up slowly as the sun rises. No place to rush off to. To be boundless. To know that I will never exist within the same moment, so I create new paths to lean into the embrace of uncertainty.

For a moment, it felt as though not being busy every second, or not being defined by a title, was like stumbling—a whirlwind of missteps trying to figure out what I am rather than who I am, for everybody but myself. Until I stopped, felt, and really looked around me; gravity, in all its grace, pleading for me to touch down, submerge, and breathe into this earth—into the wind, the rain, the waves, the sun rays, the mountaintops—into the present moment before reaching for the stars again.

Albert Einstein once wrote, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” You look at me and see a person. I look at you and see the journey—a journey before the journey—one smaller than a speck of dust with less mass than a single grain of sand. And yet, what is this speck we cling to, this freckle in our being that we so facetiously dabble in? “What is a miracle?” I pondered, and in my pondering, something struck me from the inside. I thought about my earliest memory, as far back as I could recall. I was three, swinging in a hammock on a sunlit afternoon. I remember what I wore, who lay beside me, the tree I’d fall from a few years later, this moment.

And as I began to piece together this memory, I wondered about the tiny shocks of electricity surging through my brain—it's amusing.

It’s almost a crime that we live unaware of what truly goes on inside our minds; even now, in this moment, hundreds of thousands of neurons are banding together to create a new path, a bridge, and I don’t even know it. Perhaps we feel it.

There, between the moments that have taken something more than our breath.

I wonder if we lived our lives backwards, could we then let go of the things yet to come and cradle those that have passed? Because maybe if I had enough sense to worry about what I’ve left behind, I’d have a bit more nerve to hang onto what is here now. You look at me and see a person. I look at you and see the journey—and maybe perception is a miracle.

Maybe the miracle is this world of ours. Maybe the miracle is us.