Me and the Sea~

it makes me want to write a poem, a manifesto, to draw and paint and make things, to walk for hours and stay forever. I have never met anyone who was as passionate about the sea as I am, and that is the right word because I want to know it, the names of all the creatures, who they are and what they do- the temperament of the waves and winds, the rhythm of the shore. I recognize something in it, it is my place and I have loved it since I was a child, dreamt of it, longed for it, channeled that desire into science and study, into art and poetry and music and endless driving.

A friend once said, "we get to the places we need to go" and that is a truth to be told, and just when I am flying apart- when every molecule is so stirred into frenzy- just then I found my way back to the sea. On the last day of summer I let myself go in the waves, floating, diving, tasting the water and feeling the incredible pressure of a wave bearing you down to the sand. Reminders of mortality and play, how thin the illusion of control we have over nature. Lovely.

I mostly walked the beach, found clear quartz rocks and dark cloudy ones, perfectly smooth and round and small like little moons. Keyhole limpets like tiny volcanoes- I have never found so many, and it makes me wonder what disrupted their world. Parts of purple shells, three pieces of sea glass, two brown and one clear, a ghost crab and the burnt orange specked shell of a blue crab. I saw a moon jelly, and a herring gull with a bill full of fish, tiny sandpipers, crows looking for scraps.

People were there to of course, young girls in bikinis, Marines drinking beer, families- two black boys doing handsprings up and down the beach like windup toys. Umbrellas of every color. Women reading and walking and talking, men dozing in chairs pretending to fish. Doggs. I smile at everyone, but I talk to the doggs. Little doggs with bright leashes, bull doggs dressed up with bandannas, the brace of Jack Russells with muzzles on. They are hot- panting, sweating and not allowed in the water-

A sea change and I'm feeling something, remembering this part of me that I have ignored all season. I love this. I can move and breathe and think, walk and find and swim and be. This is much cheaper than therapy, and I am grounded, filled with power and ideas, words. And I want to keep it.

Yesterday Charles brought me a shell, and it reminded me- he knows a bit about me and the sea, and I love him for that to, because he knows but doesn't *know*- it's a hard thing to understand. Barbie feels it with the mountains, Uncle Don did with the desert. It's the home of your heart, terrain of the soul. And last night I dreamt again of the sea, and a great turtle washed up on land struggling to return although it was falling apart (I wasn't the turtle, I was wanting the bones of the turtle. I thought it was dead and was surprised to find out it was still living........)

So, a Quest. With a capital Q, for a quest is a question, one you may not know you are asking yourself until you begin to remember the answer. A discovery, recovery, a turning about back to the source in order to move on. In computer terms, to reboot. And so, my quest. Because I missed this. Because it missed me. I am going to a different beach each month for a year. Not so big a deal because I live on the coast, but big-a-deal because I will have to give time to it, and movement. Because I want it, it will be, and I will be the sounder for it.