My first wild relationship was with the ocean. Coming from the warm Caribbean Sea, I felt comfortable in the water and felt confident in my ability to read its moods. From birth to womanhood, I dove in the Sound and let the current take me exactly where I wanted to go. I mapped the reefs and knew the best spots to find sea shells. And I spent many days timing the curl of the wave and riding it down to the beach. I was in love with the ocean and no matter the great mysteries that I knew it held I was always drawn to the safety it held for me. But like all relationships, change comes in ‘little deaths’ when you least expect it. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Though connected to the waters of my home, the Pacific was a force I had never known. Earlier in the day I had joined my friend Antara as we climbed down a stairway at Sunset Cliffs and walked across a tiny desert of rocks to a sandy beach. Antara is a native Californian and always reminds me of the beauty of nature with her bare feet and sun-kissed face that wears nothing but a smile. As we lay on the beach we told each other stories and watched the waves roll in with little shadows of men carving lines on its body. When the red sun finally disappeared under the curve of the earth it was time for us to make our way back. We reached the end of the sandy terrain to find that the tide had risen.
Dramatic tides
The bed of rocks was no longer there and separating us from the staircase was an angry Pacific ocean. The sound of these dramatic tides was deafening as the water filled the earth only to abandon it seconds later with a silence that would soon be broken again. Antara timed her escape perfectly and calmly skipped across the bed of rocks to the other side before the surge of water returned. I, on the other hand, stood their trapped watching the path of rocks appear, disappear and reappear. I was frightened by this side of the ocean that I had never encountered before. I could no longer find the safety I so often felt in the water. What I thought I knew departed and I was faced with a love I no longer recognised. I tried to think of another way out. Perhaps there was a secret path up another side of the cliff; another escape that didn’t involve facing this mother of an ocean that terrified me. Antara brought me back to my unfortunate reality with words of encouragement that she shouted over the noise of my predicament.
Les petits morts
The time had come to face a new stage in my long affair with the sea. The skeleton woman I read about in folk tales had arrived to remind me of the ‘little deaths’ in a relationship. And like the wisdom in her story I knew that I shouldn’t be afraid to discover the true nature of the ocean. So instead of running away when things got hard, I decided to embrace this intimidating and humbling Pacific.
As the water receded I found courage and stepped carefully unto the wet rocks. When I reached half way my time ran out. I looked towards the ocean and saw it racing towards me. I tried to brace myself on the slippery rocks and stay dry from my waist up with my bag above my head but the water swept me off my feet and I found myself submerged in the cold Pacific. Under the water I hugged the rocks as the ocean tried to suck me into its waves.
When it finally receded, I caught my breath and stood up. Wet and laughing, I finished my journey across the rocks where Antara was waiting.
I was surprised by my joy at learning a new side of something I thought was so familiar. And my journey did not end there. After confronting the ocean’s humbling lesson it gifted me the magic of Red Tide.
Months later the moon-lit ocean joined the black sky seamlessly and the only colour appeared in a magical blue light that shown when the waves crashed. I walked into the water and my whole body lit up from the phytoplankton as fish swam away from me in streaks of lightning. I dove into my beloved and morphed into an electric azure creature and delighted in a moment of pure happiness.
My wild relationship with the ocean reminds me how important it is to live in a state of nature and embrace your fears. But more importantly, wild moments like these remind me of how loved we really are.
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