The house wasn't very large, with white walls and blue windows, a decidedly plain and simple atmosphere. Opening the window, I could see the sea, a dark blue, tinged with emerald green. Waves crashed against the rocks, shattering into a cascade of white foam. When I first arrived, it was mid-afternoon, and the sun slanted across the water, creating a thousand golden sparks that were blinding.
The house was simply furnished: a bed, a table, and a bathtub. But the bedding smelled of sunshine, perhaps from frequent drying.
The most captivating thing was the bar in the courtyard, barely three feet square, furnished with two rattan chairs. In the evenings, I often brewed a pot of local tea and sat there, watching the sea. The water gradually darkened, from azure to deep blue, then to inky blue, finally blending with the sky. Fishing lights lit up one after another, flickering like stars drunken by the waves.
The morning was awakened by the sound of the waves. The tide surged up and receded, seemingly tireless. Walking barefoot onto the beach, fine sand oozes from between my toes, cool and soft. The early-rising fishermen have already set sail in their boats, shrinking into a few black dots in the distance.
On the rare occasions when there's wind and rain, I hide inside and listen to the rain pattering against the window lattice. The rain at sea arrives quickly and leaves just as quickly, and in a blink of an eye, the sky is clear again. The air at this time is especially fresh, with a salty taste. A breath of it relaxes my entire being.
Having lived here for so long, I've almost forgotten the passage of time. The numbers on the calendar are nothing more than self-imposed prisons. Here, time is measured by the tides, and life is measured by sunrise and sunset.
The night before my departure, the moonlight was brilliant, a silver road paving the sea, as if reaching straight into the moon. I imagine that Su Shi's vision was probably much more like this.