Can't we all just go and live by the sea?
Wouldn't that be lovely...
Take a moment to pause and listen to the voiceover of this pieceā¦
As my eyes shut, eyelashes kissing the hollows of my under-eyes, I find it there. Waves of greyish-blue salty sea beckoning me. My ears come into union with what my mind sees, inviting me beyond silence and into the artistry of my imagination. A place where I hear the ocean, each detail becoming its own instrument. Muted hums of water skimming over families of rocks. The loud emptiness of thoughts mentally spoken into the deep. Rustling as shoes are removed to make slippers out of sand.
In the library of memories, I thumb through all the waters that I have witnessed. Letting each one become a broth of images, experiences, words, and truths. Each book of thoughts of the sea sewed into my psyche have one word highlighted and that is, vastness.
This sense of vastness is what seduces me to the sea. Making my feet want to flee from the city. Oh, to be where it feels free. To be where you feel so profoundly insignificant as you ponder into the distance of such expansive significance. The vast openness of the sea that makes your existence feel simultaneously minute, yet also as if each of your 30 trillion cells hold the entire universe.
Raised by cityscapes and skyscrapers, where chicken bones are confetti on pavements. Mind the gap. A carnival of people tangled up in each Saturday. Red buses and black taxis. Queues for local bakeries. Queues for everything. See it. Say it. Sorted. Feeling the beat of the beauty of different cultures, food, and art, pulsating along right next to your heart. This train departs here. As polluted particles doze in nasal hairs.
The city has me. It has me in all its aliveness.
The sea calls to me. In all of its vastness.
It calls to me as my marrow hungers for space. Bones locked into where I canāt see stars for all the red lights of cranes. Where I thirst for witnessing the moon, when light pollution robs us of her. Thereās a quiet desperation that asks for my attention, to be able to simply see. A return back to myself. An immersion into nature and its cerulean carpet.
To see beyond myself. Beyond millions of people. Beyond the landscape of higher-than-high buildings that air-kiss the clouds. Beyond it all. Thatās what the ocean gives us, to see into the nothingness of everything. Looking out into the horizon of all that is, the depth of possibilities and potential. Magic. Life. All of it.
How I want to go and live by the sea. Running hand in hand with my love into chilly waters in ankle-grazing silk dresses. Sitting by a fire on the shore with my sisters, whispering intentions into each other and the earth. Seeing my mamaās dreamy eyes beneath her sunglasses as I watch her entire body sink into the nourishment of being so close to the ocean.
I donāt ask anything of the sea. I donāt need to swim in it or go into the depths to explore. Just the honour of witnessing. Being present.
Isnāt that why we have the call to go there?
A desire for space. A desire to empty out.
A desire to be free.
You have stolen the lover I thought belonged to only me. I should have known better it's vastness is too much to belong to only one.
Your words are a salve. š©µ
This reminded me to be grateful for living a 5 minute walk from the ocean. Sometimes I forget how much I wanted this when I lived in London! Thank you, beautiful words š