Some things are just true, like how a plant needs light and water to survive. Or how we need oxygen to breathe. Why is it then, that competing truths can occupy the same space at the same time? How can each be true? I asked myself this as I stood overlooking the mountains, two California Condors cut the sky above me, carving it with their serrated oil-black wings. They never flap them, never call out, never cry. They just glide for miles, riding the sky like paper airplanes made of ash. Below, past rows of trees and fragments of fallen rocks, the ocean hugged the shore, whispering sighs to the sand. Bob Dylan's harmonica howled from the headphones around my neck, singing to a small Japanese camera I held against my eye.
Two truths. How can a thing contain two true contrary truths? My mind was buoyant but sinking, two-faced monsters rolled dice and gambled on my grasp. I was at odds. With everything, everyone, everywhere - myself, too.
What was it she'd said about the sea? Has there ever been a body more rife with symbolism; what greater mirror? After all, we are sixty-percent water - sixty-percent mad, murky and unfathomable; beautiful, mysterious and dark; gentle yet severe; fraught with danger and delight; coming and going always, forever hooked, forever affected by the crescent of a pale and distant memory.
"Did you get it," she asked.
I held my breath and tried hard not to move. I pressed the shutter, waited for the camera to close its eye, and when I looked up, the ocean was gone.
"Yea, I got it."
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