Ocean = Life

 

 

When we went to Moody Gardens (this is NOT an ad post, I already did that, I’m just telling a story…) we saw a documentary on the IMAX screen there about  life at the very deepest depths of the ocean.  It was done by Jacques Cousteau’s son and it was some of the most beautiful footage of anything I have ever seen.  It added yet another layer of mystery and intrigue for me about the ocean.  It made me realize how much we do not know about those organisms and how much we depend on them as well.

 

 

 

When I was a little girl we packed up our ice chest, towels and suitcases with the hope of bringing back a little sand in them once we returned home.  I always knew when we were getting closer to the coast because I could smell the salt air from my half-opened window in the cab of my Daddy’s truck.  Once we checked into our little pastel-colored cabin, we made our way down to the ocean, where the waves lapped at my feet and I inhaled the freedom that I could see for what seemed like forever.  There, the ocean meant only a few things to me… sun, sand and surf.  My dad and I would swim out and go in the waves together (my mother does not swim) and I would squeal with delight as each one smacked me in the back.

We stayed long enough to unpack and put our things in the small, wooden dressers but not long enough to really miss home.  On one of our trips I remember the most, my older brother Chris blow-dried my hair for me and I can still see our young faces in the mirror that was there, looking back at us.  For lunch we ate sandwiches and salty potato chips (how appropriate) on the beach and then ran back in after waiting the allotted 30 minutes. At dinner we feasted on fish that my dad caught.  Later, we went to sleep with tired-from-fighting-the-waves bodies and full bellies, ready to rise and do it all again the next day.

 

 

I have always revered the ocean.  Every time I am there I think about the smallness of me and the bigness of it.  And every time I am made to leave I want to stay.  One of my dreams for the future would be to have a home there, even if a temporary one.   I cannot imagine a better place to settle, although others might exist in someone’s opinion, but probably not mine.

And in a mind like mine, jumbled with all kinds of thoughts passing each other over and over at a rampant pace, like a super highway, it is where I find calm.

 

 

 

I was at the ocean recently (last week) and I tried not to think that much about anything.

I even found a way to let some things go.

It forces me to do that.

One day while there, the water was calm and clear.  No waves at all and we could see fish swimming right by our feet and clear jellyfish floating by our waists.  Overnight a storm blew through and stirred things up.  The next day the waters were rough and the waves crashed into me and each one left a multitude of shell pieces at the shore.  I found very few complete shells.

 

 

Isn’t this just how life is sometimes?

There are calm and clear days.  And others are full of tumult and things crashing.  Full of pieces of things, that we cannot always put back together.  

Yep, just like life.

 

 

Ocean = Life

Sounds about right to me.