Today in Beirut (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
“Have you ever tried swimming to the middle of the sea?” he said, pointing to the horizon.
We were the only ones on the beach. Though I’d seen him a few times before, we’d never spoken.
“No, have you?” I said, wondering what he was really asking. How can you swim to the middle of the sea? Drying his unruly mane with a towel, he kept his gaze fixed on the setting sun.
“I have,” he said, “it was like–an eternal blue moment…”
As we bid the sea adieu, he suggested–out of the blue–that I read more poetry by al Hallaj–the 9th century Sufi who was put to a gruesome death for uttering “I am the Truth,” while in the heights of spiritual ecstasy. While Hallaj has long been one of my favorites, lately I’ve been neglecting him. So when I got home, I followed the advice of this sage stranger on the sea, and discovered this small pearl:
I do not cease swimming in the seas of love,
rising with the wave, then descending;
now the wave sustains me, and then I sink beneath it;
love bears me away
where there is no longer any shore.
— al-Hallaj
