As I pulled my car into the parking lot of the beach along the bay, I noticed a single white swan, its    silhouette bright against the misty grayness of water, sky and land.  She had the bay to herself, no ducks, no geese, not even a seagull entered the scene. Even in the rolling waters, with a storm brewing to the north, the swan seemed to glide effortlessly across the surface, confident, self-directed, unperturbed by the ever widening expanse of water she had travelled away from the shore. Soon she was out of sight, and I turned back to my book, but the image of her alone and secure in deep water was meaningful for me as the place I wish I could be in my life.

The next day, closer to sunset and parked in the same spot with the same book, my reading was  interrupted as I watched a lithe and strong young woman, dressed in a black wetsuit, carry a large white surfboard across the sand to the water. She was also carrying a long, slender oar.  She sat on the sand to stretch and struck a lotus pose for just a few minutes. Then she picked up the oar and slid the board into the water and stepped on to it. She dipped the oar into the water and began to glide across the dancing waves of an evening bay, confident, self-directed and seemingly unconcerned that the lavender hues of sunset warned of the quickly approaching darkness.

She was the black swan, and the image of her standing on that board as if on solid ground, moving further and further away from shore, was remarkable. I was envious, but I shouldn’t have been. She had obviously wanted something enough to go beyond wishing.