Picture This: Light Slivering Kilnaughton Bay

From Kilnaughton Beach, the nascent sunlight appears to fall on the sea like a sheet of glass. Slivers of light gild the rippling expanse beneath shadowy Carraig Fhada lighthouse, and the Singing Sands are silent just beyond. My skin is at once cooled and warmed by breeze and beam. The retracting waters uncover cold sand, sea-darkened stones, and the beautiful calcified bodies of deep creatures. Sea reek and peat smoke spar with the salt-stained ocean air. Across the bay Port Ellen sleeps in stolid white. My ears are full of wind and wave. Distant Ireland lumbers across the sea. My eyes, pierced by the light, see clearly.

Such beauty out in the world simply calls attention to whatever beauty might be lacking within. I have found a sliver of peace, my ember of longing tonged into some compartment just far enough away to stop the burning. Here I stand, with a love, Scotland, and yet without a love. The dark clouds surge and recede, and in the light is some found wisdom. Those of us who have lucked into finding a true love should not willingly separate from it, nor experience the wonders of the world apart.