Facing the Blue (St. Malo/Javea)

They stand at the end of the jetty, leaning against the stone wall over the water, self-conscious and dazzled, repeating:  “It’s beautiful!  It’s so beautiful!”

They also like, in order to drink a glass of cider or eat a buckwheat crepe, to have an appearance of infinity, laid out blue-grey, standing next to them, all in one piece, calm, with currents, light breezes, crossed by small white boats with colored sails.

Often, the blue remains at a distance:  just an ultramarine line on the horizon, the uncertain border of a land that cannot be reached…  In front, it’s gray, or rather faded green, stuffed with algae and sand.  The unbearably heavy sky weighs on the sea.

One summer morning, when they go for a boat ride, they fight over the bow, the stern and the seats near the rail, in order to be as close to the blue as possible and to press against it.  Empty headed, they look and look again at what they cannot understand:  the vastness and depth of the sea, this great horizontal tree, with its lungs full of foam, its colorless breath, its slight movements, its shivers, its hollows and indecisive bumps, its undrinkable bouillons, lost departures…  With incorrigible hearts, they remain silent, strangely calm and rocked by distances.

This is how they like to break through the waves, with rolling, wakes, and splashing.  The blue flying off in sprays and falling back down in whiteness.

A little later, waving their arms and legs, they will slip their imperceptible bodies into this enigma.  Then they’ll stretch out on the sand, among the striped umbrellas, in the red and greasy summer flesh that smells like fried food.

This is the soul’s recreation.