Primordial Touch
Life has not allotted me the opportunity for much
travel so when I am afforded the chance you won’t find another who appreciates
it or absorbs the experience quite as acutely as I do! *grins*
This past October I got my first ‘hands on’ experience of the
ocean. This is a letter I wrote to a
special friend about my adventure…
Hi there love,
Just sitting here before my
next 3 hour block of time is to begin.
Won’t be time during to add to this but thought I’d jot a few things
here then send it to you later… This job
is mind (and ass) numbing. Certainly not
the career I wanted for myself when I was younger looking ahead. I’d envisioned everything from writer to
singer, political sciences to geology, Egyptology to Astronomy. Psychology to Sex Therapist. What life has brought me is a wealth of
knowledge about many things but no mastery of one area in particular. *grins*
It’s funny how life often does more of the molding of our future than we
do. Certainly we have plenty of impact
but without that crystal ball we don’t know how the choices we’re going to make
are going to affect our futures till we’re in them. Seems that’s when we’re most desirous of
wishing we could change them too.
There’s a quote by Mia Angelo – I did the best that I knew at the time
and when I knew better, I did better.
Perhaps that’s not exactly true.
Sometimes it may not be better; perhaps it’s only different on some
occasions and better on others. Maybe it’s
even worse if we’re not paying attention.
Hopefully it balances somewhere.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do it in reverse, see the resulting
experience then deconstruct it forensically so that we know what we should or
shouldn’t do with our life to get the outcome that we want? My life would certainly be vastly
different. I think there’s a science
fiction novel there if it’s not already been done.
Anyway, I was sitting here
thinking about all the conversations I’ve had with you in my head and how
sometimes I forget that they weren’t real so the things I’ve told you there
that I haven’t actually told you in real life.
You are in my thoughts so often that I almost believe I could send my
thoughts out to you and you’d get them through osmosis I suppose. Ah, if only!
With all that I’ve written to you over the years I’m sure you wonder how
it’s even possible that I’ve not already said all that could be said. *smiles*
I don’t think I could ever run out of things I want to tell you or hear
from you, in a few lifetimes maybe but not just in one. Case in point, my trip to Florida
What a life changing
experience that was for me! Even with
the not so great things that happened, it was phenomenal! You had always been there with me. When I finally got down to the beach and into
the waves you were with me even more so.
I sat on my towel at the tide line and I couldn’t stop touching the
sand, running my hands through it, rolling it between my fingers; wondering
about each grain. Was it a piece of
salt, a piece of shell or coral, had it once been part of a dessert or a
mountain. How many things had it been
before I’d touched it. I dug down into
it to see what it was like further down, how far did it go? I wondered if the handprint that I pressed
into the bottom before I refilled it would someday be able to be seen in the
rock that the sand may become or be washed out to sea as the beach eroded. I wrote your name in the sand beside me so
you could be there with me as I pondered each grain of sand and each drop of
water in the ocean. The writer in me
imagined that the oceans were made from every tear ever shed throughout
time. Tears of sadness, joy, pain,
laughter… How old is the water? You hear about science giving rocks ages but
not the water. What paths had it cut in
the earth under and above the ground?
What sins had it washed away, what life had it bestowed or taken? What shores had it touched? How many times had it been circulated through
the ecological system? I don’t know what
I’d expected in the smell. Perhaps that
fishy smell one finds in the ‘fresh’ seafood area of the local grocery? I did smell that but only when we had driven
near an inset bay that was a bit away from the cleansing circulation of wind
and tide. I wouldn’t want to have to
live near that scent but by the ocean there was the astringent saline scent and
warm water. It's that same smell that
exists in your nostrils after a sweating workout. It’s funny, I knew the scent even before I came
to the ocean because after I’d spend a couple hours at the gym I’d become aware
of that warm saline scent and knew it was the smell of the ocean. I’d lick my lips and taste the salt my body
had extruded from my pores. I was aware that
the elements that lived there were within me, all part of the same as all creatures
of this planet, the elements that bound us as one. Seems less surprising to me now to grasp that
when the people of our world are violent, sick or polluted that our planet
reflects the same and as our planet is polluted, violent and sickened we are
affected likewise.
The waves… Oh love, I wasn’t prepared for that sound or
the draw of it on my soul. I used to
think people were crazy who lived by the ocean that had their lives and homes
washed away by hurricanes but kept rebuilding in the same area. I didn’t understand the hypnotic enigma of
it. I get it now! The very first night, by the time we got in,
it was dark so when we came into the condo I wasn’t able to see the ocean
because they have no illuminating lights on the sea side, a good thing I think,
but I could hear it right there at my feet!
It sounded so close, as if all I needed to do was reach out to grasp it
in my hands. I have never been suicidal
but I literally had to sit down and hold myself still because even though I was
11 floors up I felt this intense urge to jump over the rail to get to it. It was actually rather frightening to be
drawn so intensely. It was a primordial
desire that I’d never had fully awakened before. That dark night I couldn’t tell what
direction the waves were flowing. It
sounded like it was rolling left and right but that wasn’t possible. Waves go in and out, not side to side… It wasn’t till the next morning that I
understood why. As the wave broke on
the shore the wake would run the length of the wave along the edge of the tide
line. I started thinking of these as
runner waves because they sort of chased each other along the edge of the
sand. That’s what had given that side to
side sound that had thrown me off. Every
night I slept with the patio doors and the bedroom door open. For a week I didn’t listen to music, didn’t
turn on a television because the only sound I wanted to hear was the
ocean. It mesmerized me during the day
and sang to me like a lullaby at night.
I have never felt so peaceful nor slept as well as I did that week. The ocean surprised me every day with its
moods. The first night the waves broke
hard enough that the water smacked against its wake as it curled and fell upon
it’s self as it rushed the shore. The
first day it rained all day but that didn’t stop me from sitting outside
absorbing the mists to hear its muted roar, watch it shift the sands and see
the white caps dancing. The second day
the water was so still! Not quit a dead
calm but almost. The colors were
amazing! It has to be because of its
longitude/latitude that caused the skies to be so deeply blue and the oceans
clarity reflecting it back with a tinge of turquoise that made all the colors
appear so much more vivid and alive. The
whiteness of the sun hung in the blueness of the sky like a giant pinpoint
flashlight whose light wasn’t as diffused as I’m used to seeing here, even in
the summer. Plus I’ve noticed that
whenever I’ve been in the more southern areas of the country that the sky
‘feels’ closer. That the place where
clouds would exist is a shorter distance away than it is the further north one
would go, the bowl of the sky is nearer though wider to the south than it is
towards the poles. Perhaps that’s
because of the equator. I don’t know
other than it’s something that I’ve made note of in my limited traveling experience.
I was amazed at how crystal
clear the water was! I’ve never seen
that before, or at least not since I was very young in small streams. I’ve been to Lake Erie; I’m in Ohio Boston so I have at least seen some of the Atlantic in
flying over it & from Long
Wharf
*smiles* I did have to adjust
some of my thinking. Sex on the beach or
in the ocean… Not happening! At least not easily… Sand got into areas where it shouldn’t have
been just from being in the water a short time.
Sitting on the beach was a total ‘sands on’ lesson in abrasion that I
hadn’t fully grasped prior to having lived it.
So I’m thinking, sure, play in the ocean and the sand then leave the sex
for the nicely chlorinated pool or the shower that is a necessity after
spending time in the ocean! Or better
yet, the balcony overlooking and mimicking the pounding of the waves on the
shore… *grins* I really was amazed at
all the places I found sand when I took my showers!
When I got home I called my
friend in Missouri who had lived for years in Ventura , California
Thus ends this missive…
Love you lots dear heart!
