Day 32: Islay

I'm not going to say "let the sea air fill your lungs." It's more than that.

Whatever your faith -- even if your faith is in not having any -- come here. It's harsh and it's rugged. The hail doesn't care if you spend an hour walking through it. Maybe you think it takes after God. Cold and unrelenting. A salty tide to drown the reed while it's down.

That's the smallness you feel when you step off the ferry. But then there's a safety, too. You find it in the clouds, always quick to share the sun again. Turning ice beads into raindrops eager to dance along the fence. Sheep in a field, dozily grazing in wayward stances. You'd think they've been abandoned. Left alone to roam and baa. 

Freedom requires both, though: the harsh and the gentle. The jagged next to the soft. In spite of the frigid outside, a feeling warms your heart -- it's beating in step with something Divine.