love letter to the sea

by Chi

This is the first time I’ve lived in a country that’s landlocked. Not that you notice it in every day life (Brisbane ist ja nicht direkt am Meer – my hometown of Brisbane is still a bit of a drive away from the ocean), but the idea is strange. Even though I'm now a vegetarian, I often find myself missing those typical Australian seafood lunches – prawns on the barbie, fish and chips ...

Austria is a land of lakes and mountains. When I visited the lake district near Salzburg it took my breath away. I was with a group of lovely travellers from India and South Asia then and we all came from places where the landscape couldn’t be more different. It was enchanting; we spent the hours in a constant state of wonderment, eyes wide, not wanting to blink. (Wistful sigh the moment we all had to go back to Salzburg to catch our respective trains).

Impassive peaks peek
At tiny sailboats gliding
Down their blue skirt folds.

— Extract from Vienna diary, 2016.

Lakes are stunning, but they have a way different vibe to beaches, and I think the ocean will always have my heart. Glacial lakes are majestic, but they’re also cold and indifferent. They’re calming and almost hypnotically tranquil, but they make you feel very small. In Australia, at least, the ocean is warm and salty and the golden arms of its sands embrace humans of every shape and colour. The sea is so alive; it’s like it converses with you –  you run to meet it at the same time as it rushes toward you, lapping at your feet like an eager puppy before catching you up in its snarling jaws and hurling you to the ground in a fury of waves and froth. I love that feeling, the feeling of being immersed in pure energy – even if it’s the kind of energy that can rip the breath from your lungs and roll you head over heels. It reminds me that for all our pretences, we are in Nature’s dominion – a place less explored than the surface of the moon.

Taken by Elena on a gorgeous April day in 2015

The sea is dynamic, mysterious, calm on the surface but pulsing with life beneath. The sea is a symbol of my childhood. It’s where I spent every summer holiday growing up. Being near the saltwater conjures up for me a plethora of precious memories and emotions, like pearls on the necklace of my life. It’s a faded vintagey reel of Tasmania-shaped coral, jellyfish beached on the sand, pruned and wrinkled skin, diamonds shimmering out by the horizon. It’s the smell of sunscreen and brine. It’s a soundtrack of rushing between your ear and the pink walls of a seashell, of seagulls screeching and the throbbing silence that engulfs you when you’re weightless beneath the waves. And it’s this feeling of absolute freedom – frolicking long hours in the surf 'til the sun went down, walking home to binge-watch Nickelodeon, and finally snuggling up with the sweet, sweet anticipation of doing it all over again the next day.

On a bittersweet note, my summery years by the sea also shot through me a painful reminder of how transient childhood is, killing the assumption that I’d always be the same person, enjoying the same things. The beach was where the breach between me and my adult relatives attained a visual clarity. As they sat fanning themselves under beach umbrellas, ignoring my pleas for them to join me in the surf, one of my aunties explained to me: “Adults don’t like the beach, sweetie.” My little eight-year-old mouth popped open. Why? “It’s sandy. Dirty. Wet.” I was immediately terrified. Was I obliged to give up this feeling (a feeling that I recognised even then, with my child’s perspective, as being as close to bliss as I was going to get in this lifetime) just by growing up? Would there be anything in the adult world to replace it? (Sitting under a beach umbrella fanning myself seemed like a dreary alternative).

I couldn’t believe that I would ever, ever get sick of paradise, no matter how old I got. How much I enjoyed myself swimming at the beach and how icky I got about sand and salt became an unconscious gauge of my age and the years passing. I’ve learnt to fear less the changing of other interests and tastes as I transition into adulthood, but the piece of my soul that I’ve given to the ocean will surely die if ever I turn my back on it. That’s what I’m afraid of. It is what I was thinking of when I got my first little tattoo.

For now, this hasn’t happened. At the age of 21, it is still my place of bliss. I can see myself in ten or so years building sandcastles with my kids and piggy-backing them across a foamy expanse. In sixty or so years I see myself as a wrinkled old lady, perhaps without the energy to tackle waves, but nonetheless indulging in the pleasure of sinking my toes into the sand and closing my eyes and simply listening.

Sometime in the middle of those endless childhood summers, I remember making a solemn eight-year-old’s promise – to love the ocean, forever and always.

Somethin' special. Ten o'clock ocean sunsets in Spain. Back home, the sun rises over the water.