Otro Mundo. The Cave
Everything else belongs to tomorrow.
This belongs to now.
One of the reasons we fell in love with northern Lanzarote is that life moves differently here.
Most days are wonderfully uneventful.
Life moves slowly.
Quietly.
Exactly as we hoped it would.
But every now and then, the island reveals something so unexpected that it leaves us standing there with our jaws on the floor.
Yesterday was one of those days.
As we often do, we decided to take Tarzan for a walk at Playa de Las Canteras, one of our favourite beaches in the north of Lanzarote.
After three years of living on the island, and many years of visiting before that, we thought we knew this place quite well.
We were wrong.
The tide was lower than anything we had ever seen.
The Atlantic had retreated so far that parts of the coastline normally hidden beneath the ocean suddenly became accessible. Rocks, passages and stretches of shoreline that usually belong to the sea appeared for a few brief hours, as if the island had decided to reveal one of its secrets.
This is one of the things we love most about living in northern Lanzarote.
Even after years of returning, walking, exploring and simply slowing down, the island still finds ways to surprise us.
So we started walking.
Further than we had ever walked before.
Then we discovered something we didn't even know was there.
A huge cave hidden beneath the cliffs.
Not hidden by distance.
Hidden by the sea.
For most of the year, reaching it is impossible.
Yesterday, for a few short hours, the Atlantic stepped aside.
We had visited this beach countless times over the years.
Yet somehow, we had never seen it before.
Inside the cave stood a couple.
Holding each other as if, for that brief moment, nothing else mattered. Completely absorbed in each other.
The scene was too beautiful to ignore.
Before taking the photograph, I walked over and asked if they would mind.
They smiled and agreed.
Then they returned to each other as if the rest of the world had disappeared.
Looking at the photograph later that evening, I realised that what fascinated me was not the cave.
It was the moment itself.
Looking at them, I found myself imagining a simple thought:
I am here.
I am with you.
Nothing is required of me.
I am safe here.
The world can wait.
I know nothing about these two people.
I don't know where they came from.
I don't know where they went afterwards.
And I certainly don't know what life will bring them tomorrow, next year or ten years from now.
Perhaps they will spend a lifetime together.
Perhaps they won't.
That isn't the point.
Because the photograph knows nothing about the future.
It knows only this.
On that afternoon, in a cave revealed by an extraordinary tide, two people stood in each other's arms.
For a brief moment, the world outside could wait.
Everything else belongs to tomorrow.
This belongs to now.
Years from now, the photograph will still tell the same story.
Not about what happened next.
Not about what they became.
Not about whether life was kind to them.
Only about this.
For a brief moment, they were there.
Together.
In each other's arms.
Safe.
Sometimes we wish certain moments would last forever.
But perhaps photographs do something even better.
They don't stop time.
They simply refuse to let a moment disappear completely.
