The Mask and the Sea
The thin shoreline stretching eastward across Long Island was as transparent as an X-ray in the early hours. At Corey Beach, the sand was wet as if it had just shaken off the night; the smell of seaweed rang inside the sea like a distant bell. The horizon gleamed dully like the edge of a rusted knife, and staring at that line, Ethan let his shoulders fall slightly forward. It was as if an invisible pane of glass stood between him and the world; on the other side of the glass, people laughed, greeted each other, took photos; on this side, the salty air kept polishing his loneliness.
As he lifted his coffee cup to his mouth, he felt a strangeness on his lips where they touched the lid. Even his own face felt like someone else’s face to him. Lately he had been seeing the same dream often: in a crowded room, different masks lined up on the table; he picked one and put it on; he laughed, nodded, applauded… but a bitter sea taste lapped at the edge of every sentence in his mouth. When he woke, it was as if someone whispered from inside his temple: “To whom are you showing yourself?”
A sound—someone walking softly on the sand—shattered the dream.
“It’s very early,” the woman said. “When it’s early, the sea speaks more honestly.”
Ethan turned his head. The woman’s hair looked as though it had just escaped the hands of the wind; with a thin scarf around her neck and a paper cup in her hand, she was looking at him. On her face was that strange neutrality that calls a person either to come closer or to run away. She was neither smiling nor cold; she was simply here and now.
“Gracie,” the woman said, as if hearing his past in his mind and offering her name with a familiar ease. With her hand she pointed to the line where the shore ended and the shallows began. “I like to walk between the sea and the land. Humans live on such a line too.”
“Ethan,” he said. His name fell from his lips like a thoughtful stone. “Here… I sometimes feel less like a stranger.”
“Strangeness,” said Gracie, “is like the inner surface of a mask. As it touches the face, it makes the skin forget itself. When you take it off, first there’s the burn of shame, then once the air touches it, the skin heals.”
Ethan smiled despite himself. “I’m not sure it’s so good to bring up masks at such an early hour.”
“Early,” said Gracie, “but the right hour. When the shore is empty, the inside of a person fears less.”
The wind wandered between the two. Ethan took another sip of his coffee. The glass in his mind seemed to crack; the line between the other side and this side became a boundary that came and went like the sea kissing the shore. For a while neither of them spoke. The sea spoke; on the wet sand, the fine lace lines left by the receding wave stretched out like patient writing.
“What is it you’re looking for?” asked Gracie. It was as though this was not an ordinary curiosity, but one of those questions that cut the surface of the water.
“I don’t know,” said Ethan, but right after, a voice inside him behaved more honestly: “Meaning. Or a way to stay standing and shine from within. I’m tired of walking around with masks. I want my own face to be a face that can carry me.”
Gracie nodded. “Good. Then I’ll show you thirteen secrets. But these are less secrets than the things eyes that don’t know how to look always miss. Each is a shoreline point. If you pass through them all, Long Island becomes a bridge from end to end; not to the other side, but to the island within you.”
“Thirteen?” Ethan repeated. The number itself sounded like a rhythm.
“Yes,” said Gracie. “And without the first, the others remain only pretty words. The first is the way to light a lamp even when all the electricity goes out.”
“I’m listening,” said Ethan, taking the wind into his chest.
Gracie made a scooping gesture, as if gathering the willow-leaf-sized glints shimmering in the shallow water on the sea. “Secret 1: The Inner Sun.”
“A person,” said Gracie, “mostly walks by following the flashlight in someone else’s hand. The boss’s smile, friends’ approval, the fingers strangers extend from a screen… All of them light the way for a while. But they prolong the night.”
Ethan remembered his phone screen: a column of numbers quietly refreshing; with those columns, the barometer of his soul rising and falling. “What if we turn the flashlights off?”
“The night remains,” said Gracie, “but you see how many stars there are in the sky. The inner sun doesn’t gather stars; it gives you the courage to look into the dark. If you draw approval from outside, the faucet is in others’ hands. Someone opens it, you fill; someone closes it, you empty. The inner sun is carrying the faucet inside.”
Ethan lowered his head. He asked himself: How many people’s signals did I wait for today to feel good about myself? The weight of the question settled between his ribs.
“What should I do?” he said then. “Easy to say, living it… How is this sun lit?”
Gracie crouched on the sand, drew a small circle with her fingers, and placed four small dots inside the circle. “Everyone has their own power plant. Rituals—small, invisible things you don’t have to prove to anyone. They may seem ‘silly’ to others; but they burn as the fuel of the sun. For some it’s a solitary morning, for some a quiet song, for others the lines in a notebook they show no one.”
Ethan thought of the notes he’d postponed for years. The rusty strings of the small guitar he’d bought back in college. That inner voice that said he had no time to play, that the sound would bother the neighbors, that he wasn’t good anyway. Behind all those excuses, he saw a captivity handed over to others’ gaze.
Gracie stood up. “Now walk,” she said. “Let the seawater touch your ankles. Each step a question; each wave an answer. Just listen.”
Ethan took off his shoes and stepped into the water. The lingering chill from winter first startled him like a thin knife running into his bones; then he saw himself on the bright face of that knife. When the wave wrapped his ankles and withdrew, the sand sank slightly; it whispered to him: “I understand your weight. I will carry you.”
“The first spark of the inner sun,” said Gracie behind him, “is not denying your own weight. If you’re tired, accept that you’re tired; if you’re broken, see that you’re broken. Because the sun rises not on lies but on bare truth.”
Ethan came out of the water. A thin film of salt on his face. One of his eyes burned as if looking through the sea’s prism. “And then?”
“Then,” said Gracie, “you give yourself three small moments in the day. These are moments that no one knows, that no one watches. One belongs to morning—say, fifteen minutes doing nothing but watching your coffee and your breath. One belongs to daytime—for example, on the LIRR, put on your headphones and listen to a song you don’t explain to anyone. One belongs to night—write a page, even if it’s bad; because even when writing is bad, it scrapes the rust inside. These three moments—three sparks—sit on the map of your day like lighthouses. Even if you lose your way, you see the lights.”
Ethan took out his phone and opened his notes. “Morning 06:15—coffee and breath. Noon—song on the train. Night—one page of writing.” He smiled to himself. “Looks simple.”
“The simple things are the most stubborn,” said Gracie. “After a while, you’ll notice you don’t gather approval from outside. Joy is something whose seed can crack open by itself in the soil. And the strange thing: when you’re not needy, people will approach you more. Because the language of the universe is simple: neediness repels, wholeness draws.”
Ethan went back to the shore and looked at the prints he’d left in the sand. The waves carefully licked them; as the prints disappeared, another print inside him—somewhere near the left side of his chest—became more distinct. “What about the masks?” he said, his voice truer this time. “I’ve walked around for years with certain faces. When I try to take them off, shame comes. Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll be left faceless.”
Gracie came closer and touched Ethan’s shoulder with her fingertips. “Masks don’t leave you faceless. They only allow your face to blush with the first wind. That blush is your blood returning to your face. The first days you feel embarrassed, later strength comes. As the inner sun opens, the inside of the mask feels tight.”
“What will people say?” asked Ethan, and as soon as he asked it, he realized how childish the question was.
“They’ll say things,” said Gracie. “Let them. Remember: those who carry flashlights flourish them; those who have their own sun look empty-handed, but they warm the world another way.”
They walked along the sea for a while. The sun filtered through a thick wool of clouds and left a heavy gold dust on the water. Ethan felt a release in his jaw; the tension that ran toward his collarbone retreated like a wave.
“Today,” said Gracie, “carry only this sentence: I can be the source of my own sun. Don’t say it out loud; say it inside your steps as you walk. Bury a little fire in each step.”
Ethan nodded. From somewhere inside, a melody rose that hadn’t been heard in a long time: a melody from the days when, as a child, he lay on his back on the water and looked at the sky. He felt that he’d returned; or perhaps, for the first time, without borrowing anyone else’s yesterday, he had come to his own today.
“So,” he said, mixing with the sound of the sea. “What is Secret Two?”
Gracie smiled; it was as if an umbrella that hid the sun opened on her face. “A boundary,” she said. “There’s no peace with the sea without drawing the shore. But first, let’s honor this morning. Finish your coffee, write your notes. Find a sign today that you’ve carried the faucet inside and keep it until evening.”
“A sign?”
“Yes,” said Gracie. “Maybe you’ll say ‘tomorrow’ to an unnecessary message. Maybe on the train you’ll close your eyes and realize you don’t have to please anyone. Maybe you’ll just look at a seagull and wonder about its name. Each is a spark of the sun.”
Ethan finished his coffee. On his paper cup, he drew a circle and left it empty inside. “For the first time I’m drawing the picture of feeling full with emptiness,” he said, smiling at his own joke.
“Emptiness,” said Gracie, “is light’s favorite room.”
They both fell silent at the same moment and looked to the horizon. Morning was peeling like the skin of a peach, and the watery flesh of light was coming out. The sea whispered “go on” to one of them; to the other, “wait.” The whispers mixed, but the direction was clear.
Ethan put his phone, his notes, and a warmth he couldn’t explain into his pocket. Gracie took a step forward; their footprints walked side by side for a short while. Then they didn’t part, but they didn’t blend either. The road was as regular and unpredictable as the sea’s breath.
“Tomorrow morning,” said Gracie without looking back. “At Smith Point. We’ll talk about the line of the shore.”
“Alright,” said Ethan. “I’ll come with my sun.”
“Let no one see your sun,” said Gracie. “It’s enough that it warms you.”
The wind passed between the two; salt crusted at the corners of their lips. Corey Beach saw them off with the last silence of its morning. And the day rose not only in the sky, but also in a place deep inside them.
The Line of the Shore (Boundaries)
The bridge stretching toward Smith Point trembled with the wet breath of morning. On the steel railings, the salt that had waited through the night shone like a pale frost. Ethan stopped in the middle of the bridge: on one side the quiet water of the bay, on the other the darker, deeper song of the ocean. The wind knotted the two songs together and slapped them against his face.
Gracie appeared as if she had come not from the shore but out of the wind. In her hand was a long stick; with its tip she walked as if testing an invisible line on the sand.
“Today,” she said as she approached, “we’re going to talk about the shore.”
“The shore,” Ethan repeated, squinting as he watched the thin white foam line where the water and sand met. “It changes every moment.”
“Yes,” said Gracie, “but it still exists. You can’t stop the sea; the wave comes, the wave goes. The shore is the line that lets the water touch but doesn’t let it carry inside. For a human, a boundary is this.”
The sand flowed under their feet like an hourglass crumbling. With her stick, Gracie drew a clear line on the wet surface. A wave came and licked the strip; for a moment the line disappeared, then when the water withdrew, the line returned more decisively.
“Look,” said Gracie. “Drawing a boundary isn’t being rude; it’s telling what comes with foam, ‘up to here.’ A boundary has two duties: to stop the outside with respect, and to grow the life inside.”
Ethan’s phone vibrated in his pocket. The name on the screen, his boss: Mark. In the e-mail he’d sent yesterday evening, he’d started with “a small thing,” then had placed on his desk a favor that would take three people to handle and needed to be finished that night. For years, Ethan had been one of those who jumped into the abysses behind the word “small.”
“Answer,” said Gracie. “But don’t forget you’ve carried the faucet inside.”
Ethan picked up. The wind polished the voices with a fine salt.
“Ethan,” said Mark’s voice, with an impatient and skittish haste, “did you open the files I sent yesterday? It was actually needed for this morning, but I know you’re fast. We can get it done by noon, right?”
Ethan opened his mouth; on the tip of his tongue lined up the words that always came: “Sure, I’ll take care of it.” At that moment, a wave came—touched his ankles and withdrew. The boundary line Gracie had drawn grew clearer as the water pulled back.
“Mark,” said Ethan, with a surprisingly calm voice, “I’m not available this morning. I can look after 4 today, but the scope won’t be finished by tonight. If I try to rush, the quality will drop. I can make a realistic delivery tomorrow at 10 a.m.”
A brief silence on the other end. A panic that had found someone else to call, but at the same time a breath that came to its senses when it hit the face of a boundary. “So,” said Mark, “you can’t do anything before 4 today?”
“Yes,” said Ethan. “I won’t be able to do anything before 4 today.”
The closure within the sentence—the round but definite weight of the period—settled in Ethan’s chest. Mark muttered something, perhaps that he’d call someone else, perhaps that he’d change the plan, perhaps his dissatisfaction. The call ended.
Ethan put the phone back in his pocket; a weight and a lightness remained together as if he’d slipped an invisible stone inside.
“The first ‘no’ leaves salt in a person’s mouth,” said Gracie. “But look, your breath has opened. Water hit the shore inside you and withdrew; your line is clearer.”
They walked for a while. As the slope of the shore changed, the waves kissed harder and withdrew slower. Two seagulls were quarreling on the horizon: one hiding a fish head it had found from the other; the other waited patiently, watching for the right moment to approach.
“Whoever’s life has no boundary,” said Gracie, watching the seagulls, “everyone drops cargo on their shore. After a while, the shore grows heavy like waters that flood into houses; the things inside swell, mold. The person asks, ‘why am I so tired,’ but doesn’t think to check the door.”
“I always left the door open,” said Ethan. “I opened it even if they didn’t knock. As if if I closed the door… love or opportunity would slip away.”
“Love doesn’t enter through an open window,” said Gracie. “It enters through a window with a frame. Opportunity too. A house whose door isn’t locked isn’t open; it’s ownerless.”
Ethan remembered a distant memory: one evening, while his phone rang nonstop for an hour, he had opened the window and invited the sounds from outside in. His inner voice had drowned, and only the echo of outside voices had remained in the room. He’d meant to write that evening; the words had curled into others’ mouths and hadn’t visited his own paper.
With her stick, Gracie marked a new line in the sand, further back. “A boundary is not only ‘no.’ It’s also ‘when’ and ‘how.’ This line,” she said, “is your working time. This line,” she drew a little further in, “is your resting room. And this line,” she drew a circle toward the pier’s shadow, “is the inner garden you open to those you love.”
“What if people,” said Ethan, “don’t accept these lines?”
“Most,” said Gracie, “will try twice. The first wave is gentle, the second insistent. But the wave comes because it loves the shore. Not to destroy it. If the shore holds, the wave finds its rhythm.”
Just then the phone vibrated again. This time the name was Mia: his ex. Two years ago, words had become knives to each other, every sentence a cut. After that day, a silence. Now, in the top left corner of the screen, a little blue dot, a new message: “I’ll be in Huntington. Can we talk?”
A thin panic slid into Ethan’s stomach. Without looking at the screen, Gracie seemed to see the stir in his chest.
“This too is a boundary,” said Gracie. “The road to forgiveness passes through a street with a door.”
“What should I say?”
“First ask yourself: ‘How much can I talk?’—time. ‘Where?’—place. ‘About what?’—frame.”
Ethan took a deep breath and typed: “I’m not available today. Tomorrow at 5 at the Port Jefferson pier I can talk for 30 minutes. Only to finish the sentences left open.” He hit send. His fingers didn’t tremble, but his heartbeat changed; it didn’t speed up, but became more audible.
“Good,” said Gracie. “A broken glass spills all the water. You want to repair the glass first. Thirty minutes, the pier, unfinished sentences—that is, a boundary.”
The wind carried the conversation forward on its back. On the shore, a child was digging a tiny channel; the sea’s water flowed into the channel and then out again. Ethan looked at the child. “A little Panama Canal,” he said. The child nodded with a laugh. “It protects my city from the flood,” he said earnestly.
“See?” said Gracie. “Children know. Even when they play, they protect the shore.”
As the walk lengthened, the space inside Ethan widened. After a while he stopped and looked at the horizon; a boat looked as small as a pinhole on the line, but its direction was clear. “Do setting boundaries increase loneliness?” he asked.
“No,” said Gracie. “The one with boundaries is not alone; he can choose to be alone. The one without boundaries is ownerless even in a crowd.”
Toward noon, as they were walking back across the bridge, the phone rang again. This time it was his mother, Laura. “Can you come for Sunday dinner? There are twelve people. You can make that salad, and don’t forget to bring dessert.” Laura crafted her sentences not as questions but as an accustomed assignment. Since childhood, Ethan had moved like a pawn in his mother’s organization and assumed it was love.
“Mom,” he said gently, “I won’t be able to come this Sunday. I need to rest.”
“What do you mean?” said Laura, surprised. “Everyone is coming. Your not coming… would be odd. And who will make the salad?”
“Someone will make the salad,” said Ethan, “but if I come, I’ll lose the space inside me this week. I love you; next week I want to have coffee with just you. No Sunday.”
Silence. From within a mother’s expectation, the chalk dust of disappointment fell away. “Okay,” said Laura, “I’m sad but… alright.”
Ethan hung up; in his chest this time was not a heavy stone, but a fresh emptiness. Emptiness like a room that echoed; now it was possible to place a chair, a table, a vase inside it.
“Sometimes,” said Gracie, “the hardest ‘no’ is the one you say to those you love. But that ‘no’ doesn’t lessen love; it corrects its direction.”
They came down from the bridge. On the beach, the regular motion of the waves traced across the sand like a heart’s EKG. Gracie stopped and broke her stick; two pieces remained in her hands like toy batons. She handed one to Ethan.
“This,” she said, “is your boundary stick. Invisible; you carry it in your pockets. Sometimes just putting your hand in your pocket is enough. The body remembers how to say ‘no.’”
Ethan smiled and took the stick. As he slipped it into his pocket, his fingers warmed with a small safety fire. “I have a shore now,” he said.
“Yes,” said Gracie. “And the one with a shore makes peace more deeply with his sea. The wave comes, kisses, goes. The space is protected.”
As the sky turned to noon, the clouds dispersed; blue set up a bright and steady roof. In the distance, a boat’s motor fell silent for a short while; on the water remained only the wind and the heavy but steady steps of two people.
“Now,” said Gracie, “I’ll show you the third secret. But this one sits atop the first and second. If you’ve opened your inner sun and drawn your shore, we can now look at the world with another pair of eyes.”
“The glasses of opportunity,” said Ethan, with a salty smile on his lips.
Gracie tilted her head. “Exactly. Today you’ll face a few ‘didn’t work’s—not on purpose; the world is like that anyway. We’ll find the little doors within those didn’t-works. Ready?”
“I’m ready,” said Ethan, taking his hand to the broken stick in his pocket. “My sun is inside, my shore is drawn.”
“Then,” said Gracie, bending to the water and cupping the foam with her fingertips, “it’s time to change spectacles.”
The waves became an invisible belt pushing them toward the pier. A small ferry pulling away left behind a road like milk foam. That road was like a sentence written in the sky: “Every ‘no’ opens the way to the right ‘yes.’”
Carrying that sentence along with the stick in his pocket, Ethan walked to the next shore.
The Glasses of Opportunity
The morning at Port Jefferson had painted the harbor’s interior a pale blue. The air was neither too cold nor quite mild; it stood like a space between the two. Ethan sat on the edge of a wooden bench on the dock, holding a coffee cup on his knees. The smell of the sea carried salt and coffee to his nose at the same time.
“Today started badly,” said Ethan. He showed the emails on his phone: a cancelled meeting, a delayed payment, a device that had broken. “It’s as if all the doors are closing.”
Leaning against one of the wooden pier posts, Gracie let the wind lift and lower her hair. “Doors that close only look like walls when viewed through the wrong glasses,” she said. “In fact, some are the opening of new paths. It’s not a problem; it’s the glasses that change.”
“Glasses?”
“Yes,” said Gracie. “Everyone has invisible glasses. Some have dark lenses: in the rain they see only the cancelled plans; when fired they see only loss; in a broken relationship they see only destruction. But those whose lenses are different see other things in the same landscape.”
Ethan lifted his shoulders. “Do you think that’s easy? When a person loses, he sees the loss—what else is he supposed to see?”
Gracie pointed to a small child playing on the dock. The child had a broken plastic shovel in his hand. He was building a castle from mud, and when the wave came and destroyed it, he laughed and started again. “Look,” she said. “That child’s shovel is broken. There are castles that collapse. But he is building a new castle. Because his glasses are the glasses of opportunity. Even that broken shovel is a tool to him.”
Ethan watched the child for a while. There was a strange unrest inside him. Why have I never had such glasses inside me? he thought.
Gracie sat beside him. “Until now you’ve been trained to collect problems. Your mind is like a search engine: you ask ‘what’s the problem?’ and it brings you hundreds of problems. Just change the question: ask ‘What is this event teaching me?’ or ‘What is the gift here?’”
Ethan remained silent. Then he opened his phone and looked at the photo of the broken device. The screen was cracked. It had always irritated him before. But now he thought: At the shop where I’ll go to get the screen fixed, maybe I’ll run into a friend I haven’t seen in years. Maybe I’ll read something new while I wait for the repair. Maybe this will buy me an hour without a phone.
He suddenly realized: “Actually… the problem is the same. But the feeling is different.”
Gracie smiled. “See, when the glasses change, the same scenery looks different. This isn’t Pollyanna-ish denial of reality. It’s believing there’s a hidden lesson, a gift, in everything. Jung says even the darkest moments bear a potential for the soul’s transformation. He even sees depression as a message of the soul.”
Ethan took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and changed the question that came to mind. Instead of Why are these happening to me? he asked, What do these want to tell me? The answer wasn’t complete, but a lightness came.
The wind from the sea lightly trembled the coffee in his cup. Ethan felt that small tremble as a sign. “The glasses of opportunity… I can try too,” he said.
Gracie nodded. “Trying is enough. Because when you put on the glasses, the world stays the same, but you walk in another world.”
Just then a small ferry left the harbor. It left behind a white foamy path. Ethan looked at that path: not a straight line, but a trail winding and curving. But the trail reached the shore.
“Maybe closed doors are only a bend,” said Ethan. “And the road goes on.”
Gracie stood up. “Now you’ve learned. The third secret is this: Change your glasses. After this, the fourth secret awaits you: forgiveness. Because while you carry the shadows of the past, you can’t look at new opportunities.”
Ethan stood. Inside him was a stone jammed for years. Mia’s voice, old arguments, broken sentences… They were on his shoulders like a bag. In that moment he understood that even if he put on the glasses of opportunity, he couldn’t walk with that bag on his back.
“Forgiveness,” Ethan said to himself. “It will be hard.”
“Hard,” said Gracie, “but without it the road remains half.”
And the two left the edge of the harbor and walked toward Riverhead.
The Lightening Stone of Forgiveness
The road to Riverhead was long and quiet in the gray mist of morning. Ethan drove along the coastal road; outside the window, trees scratched the sky with bare branches. What he carried inside wasn’t like a suitcase—it was more like stones chained to his ankles. No matter how far he walked, the weight stayed with him.
“The past,” said Gracie, quietly jotting something in her notebook in the passenger seat, “wants to talk to you. But most of the time you carry it on your back. Yet it’s not something to carry on your back; it’s a book to be read in front of you.”
Ethan gripped the wheel tighter. “Sometimes I think. Mia’s face… that last look. The words I said. It’s like I watch the same movie a thousand times. But nothing changes.”
Gracie raised her head. Her eyes slid to a small puddle on the shore. “Stop,” she said. Ethan pulled over.
The surface of the puddle was calm; it shone like a thin mirror. Gracie gathered stones from the ground and handed them to Ethan. “Let each stone be something you bring from the past. A word, a regret, a fracture.”
Ethan looked at his hands. The cold of the stones walked from between his fingers to his heart. He held the first stone. “This… the sentence my father said to me. You will never succeed.” He threw the stone into the water. Circles widened on the surface.
He took the second stone. “The harsh words I said to Mia that last night…” He threw it. The circles mingled and grew.
Third stone: “The promises I made to myself… and didn’t keep.” He threw it. This time the water took the stone in; bubbles remained on the surface.
Gracie watched silently. “Forgiveness,” she said, “is not a gift to the other. It is the release of the load you’ve left upon yourself. Anger is like a poison you drink while expecting the other to die.”
Ethan closed his eyes. Scenes he had hidden for years came to life one by one: doors, arguments, silences. Behind his eyelids they hung like a heavy curtain. Then he breathed—a long, deep breath. As he threw the stones, the edges of the curtain began to unravel.
Gracie knelt and drew a circle on the water with her finger. “The past is not a place to live. It is a school from which lessons are taken. You take the lesson and graduate. Staying in the class only thickens your chains.”
Tears streamed from Ethan’s eyes. He was crying this openly for the first time, without a mask. The tears slid down his cheeks and fell onto the water. Fine droplets mingled with the circles the stones had opened. For a moment, the surface of the water seemed to breathe; the waves didn’t grow but disappeared in the depths.
“So,” said Ethan, his voice trembling, “how do I forget?”
“You don’t need to forget,” said Gracie. “Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is letting go of the power that memory has over you. You remember it, but it no longer rules you.”
Ethan felt an emptiness in the middle of his chest. But this emptiness wasn’t frightening; it was light. As if one of his shoulders had been removed, yet at the same time wings had been attached.
Gracie stood. “Now walk,” she said. “Try walking without the luggage on your back. See how your steps change.”
Ethan took a few steps. They were indeed different: longer, steadier. It was as if every step was being written not on the earth but in the sky.
“Forgiveness is the fourth secret. Because without dropping the stones of the past, you can’t see new roads. Tomorrow I’ll show you a new secret: the temple of the body. Because while your soul has lightened, your body must also learn to carry its own load.”
Ethan looked one last time at the water. In place of the stones that had disappeared beneath the waves, a fine brightness remained on the surface. A voice inside whispered: “I’m luggage-less now.”
And the two began to walk again on the quiet road.
The Temple of the Body
The streets in Huntington were quiet in the orange light of late afternoon. Ethan parked the car in front of a small market. When he went in, the scents rising from the shelves—fresh bread, citrus, green vegetables—gave him an unexpected peace. Gracie took a basket and walked with a solemnity as if this ordinary shopping were a rite.
“You’ve begun to find your soul’s path,” she said, placing cabbage and carrots in the basket. “But your body is still like a neglected child. Without caring for it, no secret is complete.”
Ethan shrugged. “Work, catching up, running… I’m used to managing things. What I eat, sleeping, moving… I never cared about them.”
“Think of a temple,” said Gracie. “In a temple whose stones have cracked and columns are broken, even the most beautiful hymn gets swallowed. The voice of the soul echoes inside the body. If that roof has collapsed, the voice vanishes.”
In the market’s quiet, these words settled slowly. As the basket filled, Ethan’s mind began to lighten: purple cabbage, bright oranges, carrots still carrying the smell of earth. Simple, yet alive.
When they got home they turned on the light in the kitchen. Ethan took the knife in his hand. The scent released from the veins of the cut purple cabbage spread through the room like a quiet music. “Even the colors speak differently,” he said.
Gracie smiled. “Because what is alive brings you life energy. Processed, dead foods weigh you down. If you want your soul to rise to the sky, you must help your body lift from the ground.”
Through the dinner, something changed in Ethan’s mind. Days passed for years with fast coffees and bites eaten standing up now seemed like a shame beside this simple meal.
The next morning they went for a walk at Jones Beach. When Ethan’s feet touched the sand, he felt a vibration in his body he’d forgotten for years. The cold air filled his lungs, the wind bit his face. But the bite wasn’t painful; it was awakening.
“When you move your body,” said Gracie, matching his pace, “your blood starts to flow like ink. Your brain fills with more oxygen. The little messengers called endorphins open the windows inside you. Even one walk turns you into another person.”
Ethan began to run. His steps were irregular, but with every step he became more fluid like a machine whose rust was dissolving. His pulse quickened, beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. When he stopped, his breath was fast but his eyes were open, clear.
That night Ethan went to bed early. He turned off his phone. In the dark there was a peaceful silence for the first time. As he fell asleep he listened to the rhythm of his heart. That rhythm was the same as the sea’s waves.
In the morning, when he woke, he saw a small but noticeable change in his face in the mirror: a liveliness at the corners of his eyes, a faint curve at the edges of his lips. It was as if a light rising from within had seeped into his skin.
“When you repair your temple,” said Gracie, placing a glass of water next to the coffee, “your soul’s voice echoes more strongly. This is the fifth secret. And in the chain of secrets, the next step is to keep your mind alive. Without working the muscles of curiosity, the echo in the temple won’t last.”
Ethan took the glass and sipped the water. The clarity of the water felt as if it was descending to his heart as it passed down his throat. A sentence rose from inside: “My body is the home of my soul. And I will protect this home as a temple, not a ruin.”
As the morning sun spread over Long Island outside, they both knew: the next stop was the doors of curiosity.
The Endless Swing of Curiosity
In the morning, on the east of Long Island, the end of the road to Montauk opened on a foggy horizon. The salty smell of the sea mixed with the light drone of the wind. As Ethan watched the waves hit the shore again and again at the water’s edge, he felt like a child. Each wave seemed to ask a new question: “What will you learn from me?”
Gracie came to his side with an old pair of binoculars in her hand. She handed them to Ethan.
“Look,” she said, “at the horizon line.”
Ethan pressed the binoculars to his eye. At first he saw only grayness, then a small sailboat appeared. It was almost invisible among the waves.
“A ship…” he whispered.
Gracie smiled. “You see it. Because you became curious. With bare eyes you saw only an ordinary mist. The binoculars are curiosity itself; the binoculars of your mind, not your eyes.”
Ethan lowered the binoculars. “But as you grow up… people tell you not to be curious, just get things done. Asking questions looks like a waste of time. You have a job, a responsibility. As if curiosity were a luxury for children.”
Gracie nodded. “Yet curiosity is the muscle of the mind. If you don’t work it, it weakens. As a child everyone uses that muscle strongly. You can look at the petals of a flower for hours, ask questions to the stars in the sky. But when you grow up, your mind always walks the same streets. The same bus route, the same thought patterns. And the world becomes boring.”
They sat in a café. Outside the window, seagulls were crying. As Ethan sipped his coffee he began to pay attention to the details around him: the scratches on the wood of the table, old fisherman photos on the wall, the small compass figurine near the till. He had never paid this much attention before.
“Curiosity,” said Gracie, “is not only asking big questions. It is discovering something new in small details. The flight of a bird, the lines on a stranger’s face, the melody of a song you never knew. Everything opens a new window.”
Just then an old man entered the café. He wore a faded sailor’s jacket. As he passed their table, Ethan mustered his courage and asked:
“Excuse me… What does the emblem embroidered on that jacket mean?”
The man smiled and his eyes drifted far away. “It was from my father’s ship,” he said. “That emblem represents one of the first commercial ships to enter Montauk Harbor in the 1960s.”
And he began to tell: the storms, the friends who were lost, the loads that made it to the harbor… Another window opened in Ethan’s mind. A small sign he’d been curious about had opened the door to a whole story.
After the man left, Gracie quietly noted in her notebook: “Ask one word, a thousand stories are born.”
Ethan smiled. Inside him was a stirring he hadn’t felt in a long time. That childhood burn—the desire to know everything, to see everything—was slowly returning.
“So,” he said, “what good are all these new things? Just to know?”
Gracie turned her eyes to the sea. “No. Curiosity renews your life energy. It opens new paths in your mind. It’s like stretching your muscles. The mind stretches, grows, doesn’t rust. And remember: Carl Jung says one of the soul’s most important tasks is to remain open to the unknown. Because rejecting the unknown halts the growth of your soul.”
Ethan stood and looked out the window. On the waves, the sailboat he’d seen in the morning was still visible. Small but determined. A voice rose inside him:
“Maybe I can set sail again too.”
Gracie looked at Ethan. “This is the sixth secret,” she said. “Working the muscles of curiosity. If you do this, the dullness of life unravels and the world becomes a playground again.”
By late afternoon, when they sat in front of the Montauk lighthouse, the sky had turned purple. Ethan whispered, turning a small stone in his hand:
“I’m ready to learn again.”
Gracie nodded. “Then comes the seventh secret: the magic of the present moment. Because curiosity opens you outward, but the present binds you to the ground. To fly without falling, you need both.”
The Magic of the Present Moment
At the most fragile hour between night and day, Corey Beach’s horizon took on a blush of pink. The sand was cool with the damp of morning dew, and the sea fidgeted like an impatient child. When Ethan pressed his bare feet into the sand, he watched the waves quickly erase the prints of his steps.
“The past and the future,” said Gracie with a faint smile, “both hold sharp knives in their hands. But for them to cut you, you walk into their hands. Whereas now—nothing can wound you.”
Ethan was silent. The echoes of his last argument with Mia still circled in his head. Then came the questions about the future: “Can I love again? Will I be alone? Will I fail?” His mind swung like a pendulum between past and future.
Gracie pulled a small bottle from her bag. Inside was a simple hourglass. Fine grains were slowly falling down.
“Look,” she said, “the present moment is the fall of the sand. You can’t take back what’s above, nor put back what’s below. All you have is the dance of the grains falling.”
Ethan took the hourglass in his hand. As he turned it in his palms, he watched the flow. For the first time he saw a face of time so plain and comprehensible.
Then Gracie sat him down and had him close his eyes. “Feel your breath. The air going in and out of your lungs. The weight of your body, the contact where you sit. Listen to the sounds around you without judging them. This is the moment.”
At first Ethan struggled. Thoughts again knocked at the door of his mind: “Why did I do that, and what about tomorrow?” But then the rhythm of the breath slowly laid a cover over those voices. His chest opened, his shoulders loosened. For a moment there remained only the smell of salt, the murmur of the sea, and the beat of his heart.
When he opened his eyes the beach looked different. Colors were brighter, sounds clearer. The flap of a seagull’s wings seemed like the greatest miracle in the world.
“Happiness,” said Gracie, “is not the grand moments but the sum of small ones. But most people pass by those small moments like the blind, because their mind is either in yesterday’s regret or tomorrow’s worry.”
Ethan stood and walked to the edge of the sea. The waves were striking his ankles. He bent slightly and dipped his hands into the water. The cold poured into his veins; a feeling alive, sharp, clear. A sentence rose from inside:
“I am here.”
Gracie came to his side. “This is the seventh secret. The magic of the present moment. The past chains you, the future frightens you. But now—now sets you free.”
As the sun rose, Ethan noticed that the noise of his mind had fallen quiet for the first time. That morning, even as he drank his coffee, he drank it noticing the warmth of the cup, the steam’s touch on his face, the bittersweet balance of the coffee.
Now the moment had become not just a bridge but a temple.
Looking at the peace on Ethan’s face, Gracie whispered:
“And now, the eighth secret: the generosity paradox. You’ll see that giving is in fact the most secret way of receiving.”
The Generosity Paradox
It was a Sunday morning. In one of Long Island’s small towns, a crowd wandered through the old fishermen’s market by the shore. People’s voices, the smell of fresh seafood, and the creak of ropes hitting the harbor blended together. Ethan and Gracie walked slowly through the crowd.
As Ethan watched the crowd, he turned inward: “Everyone comes here to get. Fresher fish, cheaper price, more things… But what about giving? Why is no one after that?”
Gracie turned her head as if she had read his thoughts. “Because most people think of hoarding when they think of energy. Yet energy is like candlelight. When you light another, your light doesn’t go out; on the contrary, it multiplies.”
Just then an elderly woman stood in front of a stall with her basket. She was counting coins with trembling hands, but it was obvious she didn’t have enough. Ethan hesitated at first, then pulled a few dollars from his pocket and placed them in the woman’s hand. The woman looked up, her eyes moist. “The kindness of someone I don’t know…” she murmured.
Ethan noticed his own heart speeding up. It was as if the few dollars he gave the woman pumped more blood into his own veins.
In a whisper, Gracie said: “Here’s the paradox. Giving is actually receiving. A smile, a thank you, a small help… These send a signal to the universe: ‘I have plenty.’ And the universe sends you more in response.”
They left the crowd of the market and walked toward the harbor. A group of children were throwing bread to seagulls at the end of the pier. Ethan went over to them and shared a small packet of crackers he took from his pocket. The children’s laughter mingled with the flapping of the seagulls’ wings and rose to the sky. In that moment, Ethan’s soul was like a window opened to the sky.
“Remember this,” said Gracie, “generosity isn’t measured only with money. It comes with time too. By listening, by complimenting, by giving thanks… The echo of small gifts sometimes lasts a lifetime.”
In the late afternoon, while they were drinking their coffee, Ethan sincerely thanked a young waiter at the table next to them. The surprised and grateful smile on the waiter’s face filled Ethan’s heart.
“Do you see?” said Gracie. “Your energy has multiplied. Because you became a channel of energy, not an energy hoarder. Jung says one of the most fundamental drives of a human is to serve something greater than oneself. Generosity is the answer to that deep longing of the soul.”
Ethan turned his eyes to the sea. The sunset painted the horizon with a crimson fire. A voice rose within him:
“I have plenty. And the more I give, the more I grow.”
Gracie smiled. “This is the eighth secret. The generosity paradox. But remember, alongside the giving hands there’s also the darkness that wants to pull you in. Now I’ll take you to the ninth secret: drama resistance. Not being swept up in someone else’s storm.”
Drama Resistance
It was late afternoon. In one of Long Island’s busy cafés, gossip and the smell of coffee hung with equal intensity over the tables. Even if Ethan tried not to hear people’s whispers, his ears caught them involuntarily:
“You know, Jessica fought with him again…”
“Mark was a disaster in that meeting, everyone is making fun of him…”
“Sarah is absolutely untrustworthy, don’t you dare tell her your secret…”
The words hung in the air like a thin smoke; invisible but poisonous. Ethan took a sip of his coffee; it left a bitter taste in his throat.
Gracie sat across from him. She took a small notebook from her bag and wrote a single sentence:
“A problem wants to be solved, drama wants to be fed.”
“If you don’t know the difference,” she said, fixing her eyes on Ethan, “you get caught in someone else’s storm.”
Just then a young woman at the next table wiped her tears and shouted at her friend:
“Aren’t you on my side? You’re choosing him, huh?!”
Ethan stared despite himself. There was fire in the woman’s eyes; anger, helplessness, and hunger for attention burned all at once. Gracie shook her head. “This is the call of drama. It wants to pull you in. But if you go in, you sink.”
Ethan whispered: “But sometimes… shouldn’t we help?”
Gracie smiled. “Helping is different, drama is different. A problem wants a solution. Drama is fed by attention. You don’t have to be its trash can. If you take sides, you become an extra in their play.”
When they left the café, the wind had made the street lamps flicker. Gracie took Ethan to the seaside. The waves were hitting hard; the foam covered the shore like white sheets.
“Watch the waves,” said Gracie. “The storm plays its own scene. If you don’t buy a ticket, your inner peace won’t be spoiled. Walking away from the drama stage is protecting your heart from empty quarrels.”
As Ethan watched the sea, an awareness rose inside him. For years he had thrown himself into others’ anger: a referee in friends’ fights, a defender in family arguments, and in his relationships always one of the sides. And every time he came out tired, exhausted, wounded.
Now he understood: These storms weren’t his. He could refuse to be a soldier in their war.
“Drama,” he said to himself, “is not my stage.”
Gracie placed her hand on his shoulder. “This is the ninth secret. You will not be swept up in someone else’s storm. Because you are the captain of your own sea. But you must be willing to be alone. Without the art of solitude, drama resistance is not complete.”
Ethan’s eyes gazed into the dark horizon. He felt more strongly the power of the silence within him than the waves.
The Art of Solitude
That night, on the southern side of Long Island, they walked along the dark shore of Corey Beach. The waves reflected the moonlight like broken mirrors, and the wind quietly dragged the sand. The murmur of the crowd was far behind. Now there were only the sea, the sky, and two people.
Ethan took his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen; the message box was empty. He took a deep breath. “Sometimes… solitude feels like a bottomless well to me. I’m afraid even of my own voice. That silence suffocates.”
Gracie stopped walking and put her foot in the water. The cold wave hit her ankle. “Because you’re confusing solitude with forsakenness,” she said. “Forsakenness is a lack; solitude is a choice. And when used correctly, it’s the strongest charging station a person has.”
Ethan bowed his head. “I always needed someone. Even to drink a coffee I looked for a friend to be with me. Going to a movie alone wouldn’t occur to me. As if if I’m alone… I’m incomplete.”
Gracie smiled. “As Jung says, the introvert gathers energy from their inner world. The extrovert gathers it from others. The healthy thing is to balance the two. The one who doesn’t learn to be alone can’t truly bond with anyone. Because he is always needy.”
On the shore, the light of a distant lighthouse turned, its hum mixing with the moan of the wind. Ethan fixed his eyes on that light. “But how? How do I befriend solitude?”
Gracie didn’t answer. Instead, she took out a small thermos and poured two cups. As the steam rose, Ethan held the cup between his palms. The warmth warmed him inside. “Like this,” Gracie said at last. “Solitude is like drinking coffee by yourself. Simple but deep. When you make peace with silence, you hear the compass inside you. That compass guides you without being beholden to anyone.”
Ethan closed his eyes. The sound of waves, the metallic ring of the thermos, the bitter smell of coffee… He suddenly realized that this silence was not suffocating. On the contrary, it was a force that lightened and deepened him.
“When you’re alone,” said Gracie, “your masks fall. You see your own face. When you befriend that face, you no longer need anyone’s approval.”
Tears ran down Ethan’s cheeks, but this time not from sorrow— from the peace of an introduction. He was meeting himself. For the first time he heard the echo of his own voice not as an enemy but as a friend.
He stood and shouted toward the sea: “I am not alone! I am with myself!” The return of his voice as it struck the waves filled him with an echo.
Gracie nodded silently. “This is the tenth secret. The art of solitude. When you learn this art, your relationships are freed from neediness. You approach people not because you need them, but because you choose them. And it is this choice that sets you free.”
In the darkness of the shore, Ethan looked at the prints of his own steps. There were only two sets of prints in the sand: his and Gracie’s. But for the first time, he felt strong enough to walk on his own.
The Sacredness of Saying No
That morning, as Ethan walked along one of Long Island’s narrow streets, he remembered something he had learned in childhood: the word “yes” was always safer. If you said yes, no one would be hurt, no one would be angry at you. But the weight of those yeses accumulated; they were fastened to his back like invisible chains.
Gracie noticed his absentmindedness. “What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“All the moments when I couldn’t say no,” said Ethan. “I went to invitations I didn’t want. I took on tasks I didn’t want to do. I mistook others’ burdens for my own. And every time I lost a little more of myself.”
Gracie stopped. She took a small stone from her pocket. She had drawn a red mark on the stone. She handed it to Ethan. “Let this be the symbol of your false ‘yeses.’”
Ethan clenched the stone in his palm. It was cold, heavy. “So… how will I let it go?”
Gracie’s voice blended with the wind’s murmur:
“Saying no is not an attack; it’s a defense. Like a shield. It protects your energy, your time, your boundaries. Every yes is an invisible no. The yes you give to another is often a no you give to yourself. And when you say no to yourself, you can’t say a true yes to anyone.”
They entered a café. When they sat down, the waiter came over. Ethan was about to say “the usual” without looking at the menu, when he paused. Gracie’s words echoed in his mind. “No,” he said politely. “I want to try something new today.” A simple refusal, but a drop of courage flowed from within.
“Do you see?” said Gracie, smiling. “Saying no isn’t only turning others away. It’s also opening new doors to your own life.”
That late afternoon, as Ethan walked on the shore, he felt a lightness in his heart. The obligation he had carried on his back for years—not to hurt anyone, to live in others’ shadow—had begun to loosen. “No,” he said out loud to himself. “I have boundaries. I have my time, my energy.”
The waves hit the shore as if to affirm that word.
Gracie came quietly to his side and fixed her eyes on Ethan’s face. “This is the eleventh secret. The sacredness of saying no. What matters is not that people take offense at you, but that your own soul thanks you. And remember: those who truly value you will respect your no too.”
Ethan took a deep breath. For the first time he felt the taste of a free decision. Saying no was actually rediscovering his own yes.
“And now,” said Gracie, fixing her eyes on the horizon, “I will prepare you for the twelfth secret. Because what you say no to gains meaning with what you say yes to. The compass that governs those yeses is your purpose. The next secret: The Purpose Compass.”
The Purpose Compass
The next day, on the eastern end of Long Island, they stood in front of the Montauk Lighthouse. On the horizon the ocean looked boundless. Waves crashed against the rocks and foam rose toward the sky. As Ethan watched this scene, he felt both tiny and infinite.
“If you had a ship,” said Gracie, “but no compass… What would happen?”
Ethan smiled. “I’d get lost at sea. I’d go wherever the wind blew me.”
Gracie nodded. “Life is like that. Even if you have the sturdiest ship and strongest sails, if you don’t have a compass, the waves blow you here and there. The meaning of your nos and yeses appears only when you have a compass. This is the twelfth secret: the purpose compass.”
Ethan closed his eyes. Inside him echoed questions: “What is my why? Why do I get up in the mornings? What do I live for?” He had been avoiding these questions for a long time. Work, bills, daily scramble… But now, like the light of the lighthouse, these questions illuminated his mind.
Gracie took a small paper from her pocket and had drawn a circle in the center. In the center of the circle she had written a single word: “Why.”
“What is it that gets you out of bed in the morning?” she asked. “Just debts? Just getting through the day? Or something more?”
Ethan couldn’t answer. But from deep in his heart a feeling was rising: the dreams he drew in his notebook on the beach as a child, the desire to be a marine biologist, the passion to write books, the wish to leave even a small mark on the world… All the voices he had silenced over the years had returned.
“Your purpose doesn’t have to be big,” said Gracie. “You don’t have to save the world. Maybe your why is to give your children a better life. Maybe to create something in art. Maybe simply to become a better, wiser, more loving person. But you must have a why. Because purpose keeps you standing even on the darkest nights.”
At that moment the light of the lighthouse turned and struck his eyes. Ethan felt the light touch the deepest place of his heart. “My purpose…” he whispered. “I can’t put it into words yet, but it burns inside me.”
Gracie smiled. “You are on the right path. Jung says one of the greatest tragedies of a human is meaninglessness. A life that loses its meaning loses its energy. Purpose gives you roots. The wind may shake your branches, but your roots keep you upright.”
Ethan fell to his knees and placed his palms on the ground. He felt the damp of the earth. Between the lighthouse’s light, the sky, and the sea, he sensed a compass rising from within. Now not others’ approval, but the light of his own why would guide him.
“My why…” he whispered again. There was resolve in his voice. It was a sentence not yet complete, but now ready to set out.
Gracie fixed her eyes on the sea. “This is the twelfth secret. The purpose compass. Now there’s only one secret left: seeing life as a game. Because purpose is the compass; but if you don’t enjoy the journey, even the compass is useless.”
Ethan took a deep breath. The weight in his chest had lightened. It was as if the whole journey had brought him to this moment: to dare to seek and find his why.
If Life Is a Game, Be a Player
The light of the Montauk Lighthouse was behind them now. Ethan and Gracie were walking along the quiet roads that stretched along Long Island’s coast. The sun had set, and the sky shone with silver and purple hues hidden inside navy. In the distance came the laughter of a few children; in their hands, kites danced with the wind.
Ethan watched them with a faint sadness in his eyes. “Sometimes life feels so heavy,” he said. “Every mistake seems fatal. Every failure like my end. As if I’m on an exam and everything I do wrong punishes me.”
Gracie smiled. “Because you’ve forgotten the game. If life is a game, you must be a player. Look at the children: they fall, they get up; the wind snaps their kites, but they tie them again and try again. They laugh, they cry, they laugh again. They have no solemnity; yet while playing they live more than you do.”
Ethan took a deep breath. “I always tried to be perfect. When I made mistakes, I punished myself. As if it weren’t a game; as if it were a constant final exam.”
Gracie picked up a small stone from the sand and handed it to Ethan. “A game is accepting that mistakes happen. Throw the stone; even if you don’t hit the target, enjoy it. Because trying is learning. A player knows that even losing is part of the game.”
Ethan threw the stone into the sea. The stone skipped a few times on the water, then sank. He smiled. “It was actually fun,” he said. “Even though I didn’t win, it was fun.”
Gracie nodded. “That’s it. Life’s ups and downs are like this. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But in any case, the game itself is beautiful. When you take yourself too seriously, your energy drains. When you play, your soul lightens. Jung says the child-spirit never dies on the path to wholeness; if you kill it, you lose life’s joy.”
That night they lit a fire on the beach. The light of the fire illuminated Ethan’s face. There was a different gleam in his eyes: both peace and curiosity. “I will be a player,” he said. “With my imperfections, my attempts, my mistakes. And I will have fun.”
Gracie wrote one last note in her notebook:
“The game has begun. And now the player is on stage with his own light.”
With the lighthouse’s beam reaching far and wide, on the dark shore Ethan, for the first time, was not only walking—he was playing. As the waves hit his ankles, his laughter mingled with the sky.
