A sandy manifesto

It had been days since Gloria walked the beach.  She either walked slowly, thoughtfully or she danced with the incoming tide like a child, watching its moves, letting it brush her feet yet not surprising her with a show of its power.  Or not often.  She could observe the waves for hours, whether the surf was high and daunting or flat like a placid lake.  To her it was a continual give and take.  What it brought in was often unseen or subtle, a line of foam.  What it swept away was at least a portion of anything in its path. Sometimes Gloria fed it words the way she set out crumbs for the quick songbirds behind the shop when the gulls weren't looking.

She came to the dampened sand knowing all was ready for the start of business.  Fiona was there, apron tied, for any early trade, which gave Gloria time to copy sentences from the scrap of lined paper in her pocket.  She thought of it whole as a sort of manifesto, a declaration of truth as it had seeped into her over the past few weeks.  She didn't mind crouching to write with her finger rather than a stick.  Leaving a message for the sea, either to deliver or digest, created the sense of having taken a serious matter directly to the source.  She wrote:

I will always trust my knowing.
I will be happy and grateful because they are choices.
I will remember I don't have to explain.
I recognize that each love is unique and does not have to match anything else that has ever been.
I will be patient and simmer down.
I always have the option to change my mind.
I know that magic is real.