The Ocean and I
The ocean calms me. The ocean excites me. The ocean feels like my home. It always has. I am beginning to see why. The ocean never stops, never has and never will. The waves are relentless, crashing forever onto the sand, washing up debris just as it smooths the sharp edges of what it hurled up the last time. Even if nothing much lands on the shore for a spell, you can be sure the next minute will bring a new host of flotsam, and if not, it will be the next. Something more always comes, even as the shells, glass, and rocks from before are worn away. So slowly it seems there is no progress, but eventually the glass is smooth and almost soft to the touch. The rocks are iridescent and can be mistaken for glass. The shells are hardly recognizable as what they once were. But none of it ever vanishes. If you could stand there with the waves lapping at your feet for long enough, you would see all these things eventually turn to the soft sand under your toes. Have you ever tried standing there, at the edge of sea and land? As you stare at the horizon, you fall deeper and deeper into the sand. It moves around you as if to consume you. You have only put your ankles in, and the ocean already wants to steal the rest of you. Have you ever waded, but not dove in? I don't think I have. The ocean beckons and I inevitably answer her call and dive in with joy. Sometimes I forget that I am an oddity in that way. So many enjoy the feel of the water and the sand together, the coolness of the water against the heat of the sun on their shoulders, then move back to the land where they belong. But, no, I leap, submerge, rise up only to swim down again to feel this even softer sand in my hands, to explore what I can find on the sea bed. Even when I am exhausted, I float and enjoy the embrace of the ocean. The ocean doesn't know subtlety. She will draw you in, pull you any way she knows how. Sparkling colors, shocking waves, sudden currents... Even glistening stillness is calculated to draw you closer to her, to have you heed the siren call of her waves to you. That smell calls to me every time I am near the ocean. She wants me to return, even though I always leave her. Did you ever think of that? Everyone leaves the ocean. People may live their whole life in fields or forests but they always leave the ocean no matter how much they love her. They must; it is inevitable. If not, they die. And she has seen enough death to not wish for that. Do you wonder if she hopes though? That some brave soul will find a way to stay forever? How long has she waited for that? Does the length of the wait even matter when she knows her hope is simply a flight of fancy, impossible? The ocean is chaotic. I'm sure any sailor knows better than I how moody she is. The waters seem to change in a moment, from gentle waves to angry thrashes against your skin, then back again just as quickly. She is unpredictable, and everyone who loves her has also learned to cope with her wild changes and maybe even love them. I'm sure I've taken this metaphor far past its breaking point. I'll simply say this: I stand in the ocean, and I feel at home, ready to dive in and love her. That is the closest to an expression of self-love that I have: I love the ocean, always there but ever changing, desperate to pull you under to her embrace, full of life yet eternally lonely. As I brace myself for the cold, I feel a sisterhood I can hardly fathom, and promise her whatever time I can give her.
