“Can life ever be a straight line? We’re born. We die. And in between, we walk the line. Tell me about that line.”
Ledge to blue
This photograph was taken on the heavenly islands of the Maldives. Sitting on the shore, surrounded by expanding shades of blue and turquoise, there was nothing but the sound of the wind brushing the sand.
Serenity at its best.
In the midst of the comfort of tranquility and uniformity, I spotted this ledge. It jutted out from the scene – an invitation of sorts to the clear shallow waters.
It was deserted.
It was old.
It was broken, and it broke the simplicity of the scene. It seemed out of place.
Who would place a ledge there? And for what purpose?
Was this a different scene altogether from many years ago? Perhaps the water was not so level with the land then, as it is now. Perhaps this ledge was part of something bigger, and now it was all that remained of a buried history. Had it been witness to trials and tribulations? Had it lived a life rich with adventure of people that had traversed its surface? Or had it simply been recently put together haphazardly and placed there just to give this scene some disorder?
It was hard to tell. My thoughts wandered, yet it still felt like it had stories to tell if it could speak. A scene like this, screaming at me to be captured, usually means that in my heart, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Maybe not so immediately. And so, I trusted my instincts and took it away with me, waiting for the reason to reveal itself to me in time.
I think of our ups and downs. Our turning points. The experiences that break us and make us. The people whom we meet. The people we become in the end.
We are works in progress. Right until the very end. And there is always a million stories within us, from the moment that we are born, until the day that we move on. Every moment tells a story, for every single one of us.
Turbulence comes with the ticket to life. There is no straight line.
This ledge was symbolic to me. It created a sense of uneasiness.
Who would choose to walk this ledge to get to the calm of the blue when you could sink your feet in the sand, abundant all around, in a more pleasurable route to the water?
Yet some of us do. Our motivations may differ. Boredom. Curiosity. Circumstances. Self-discovery. Adventure. Pick one or add your own to the list.
We choose the road less travelled. We choose the hard way. We choose to challenge the status quo. We want to see and discover. We seek to learn. The destination may be the same, but we always learn something new along the way.
And so, when I look at this scene, I am reminded that sometimes, to truly appreciate the fresh, crisp, thrist-quenching water, we have to have the courage to walk the line. The unsteady, wavering and sometimes shaky line. We know the cliché that it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. It just makes the destination all that more meaningful.
What do you see when you look at this scene?
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