we were never supposed to leave

I walked back into the room and specified the smell to air conditioning and soggy graham crackers.

And how do you say goodbye like this?

I pictured myself floating away in a small rowboat. Gliding through the night into the wide waters where the ripples that my small boat made....they affected no one but me. Only I could hear the splashes of my rowing, and how God has called me to be content with these nightly trips around the island. To row back, and to dock while everyone is sleeping next to someone else's beating heart.

I console myself that someone is flying above, in a helicopter, and can't see me, and they think that perhaps they are alone as well. Besides dispatch. Despite air controllers. 

Despite that God loves us and knows us and speaks to us.

Sometimes it is hard to hear him above the white noise and the neighbor's dog, and the paddling of your oars. But you hope he is still guiding you to a place that the sand is not as rocky, and that your ulcer could be solved by ice cream, and to where none of your loved ones have accidentally bleached your favorite pajamas into a color less than purple....

That is where I am drifting in the summer night air. And when I drift north, and the sea freezes into floes, there will be grace for that time too.