Sometimes I Live by the Sea
I arrived at a place both familiar and elusive. Cool, misty mornings give way to cloudless afternoons where I watch cormorants dive and surface with their catch. Wading amid tiny translucent crabs and innocuous jellyfish reminds me that I’m an insignificant part of this ecosystem. Our rental house is across from the bay, with a small private section that is quiet except for a few shell and beach glass hunters and dog walkers. The evenings are breezy, salty wind ruffling curtains. We have rented many houses and cottages on this small strip of land, spent hard-earned weeks recovering from our challenging jobs and the schedule of our children. All of us view this place as a kind of sanctuary. We have traditions here, ice cream at Lewis Brothers, seafood at Mac’s, beach walks, bicycle rides, friend meetups. I’ve spent birthdays and anniversaries here, watched numerous Carnival Parades, and shivered through the unrelenting January wind at Race Point. I’ll be here for my birthday this year and dear friends will come to join our entire family—all in one place though we live thousands of miles apart. When I leave, I’ll ache to return, though it is more complicated now that I live far away.
I do not know why certain landscapes speak to me. Mountains are stoic and hold their secrets close. For me, the cacophony of the sea, its crescendos and dips, briny odor, and the way it teems with life—swirling seaweed, tiny fish, scurrying crustaceans, barnacle-encrusted rocks remind me of my own insignificance. The sea nags me to write wildly without holding back. I have memories of my children running into the sea, digging in the sand, making trenches with dutifully lugged pails of water. Now adults, they still hold this place close. The youngest member of the family, just two, builds sandcastles, watches fish, and splashes in the water as often as he can, shrieking with same delight I remember from my own kids. It is something I pass on. Although he may turn out to be more enamored of desert or mountains, I hope he will return to this noisy, joyful place and think of us.
I try to write without limits. Writing is the crest of a wave, a storm, the battering of the wind. When I leave, I will carry the moodiness and variegated colors of the sea and its possibility of danger from a rip current or shark. White sharks have returned because they feed on seals and the seals are abundant. We all survive however we can.
Living far away has made these trips harder and more expensive. When I leave, there will be a space inside of me that I’ll try to fill but it isn’t possible to replace awe with busyness, wonder with routine. Instead I’ll tamp the feelings down and pretend patience until once again I can drive, fly, or take a boat to the place I feel most at home.
Literary Imaginings by Lisa C. Taylor 