The Grey-Green of Abandoned Ships

 

I did not grow up with the sea.  It is something I am drawn to. Bodies of water in general, perhaps, but there is something specific about the depth and vastness of the ocean. I do not claim to understand it- even in its basics. But the way I am drawn to it- an apparition pulled by a dull golden thread towards it's foamy crashing- is unmistakeable, unexplained, and haunting.

The first time I became aware of it's pull was during cancer.  

It was almost always at night. Unable to sleep, I would walk up and down the streets of my neighborhood. I recall always feeling like I should be wearing some kind of flowing, scary-as-shit nightgown roaming the pavement at such ungodly hours. But I never did, and the streets and the images of waves in my head were never enough.  I would, almost always, climb into my truck and drive down to the ocean stand-in of a nearby lake. Craving salt upon my skin but settling for a puddle underneath the massive arch of a black skeleton bridge, I would sit on a rotting and damp log and stare out and into the water. 

The waves. The moon's lightening bolt reflection upon it's surface. I would think about the vague pieces of information I could recall about the moon and the waves and our bodies and the strange, glimmering fishing line that connects the three. 

In the rocking of the waves, something calmed.  In the soaked and entire cold, something numb began to feel.  Watching waves curl and turn and push and disappear, two questions emerged each time I was in the presence of water. 

Salted. Unsalted.  

Among currents and undertows, swellings and dissipations, the same two questions would spill then recede from the horizon to the dark wet rocks under my feet, and back again. 

What is it that makes us loveable? 

What is it that makes us survive?

(photo credit: englishteacups tumblr)