Undertow

The first time I remember seeing the ocean,

I was nine,

and smaller than everyone I knew.

I was so small, and the ocean was so big.

But still, I felt a kinship.

It had tried to drown me.

My parents had insisted on holding both of my hands,

much to my embarrassment.

I was so small,

and the ocean was so big.

They were scared.

As we walked into the cold water,

(so cold, even in July),

I was eager to go in deeper.

My parents held my hands fast.

Too dangerous, they said.

I disagreed.

When I felt my feet go out from under me,

and my body get pulled beneath the waves,

all I felt was disorientation,

abstract panic,

and my parents’ hands gripping mine,

Dad on my left,

Mum on my right,

pulling me back into the air.

The blue sky shone brightly above

as I spluttered,

relieved and confused.

Undertow, they said to me.

See why? they said to me.

Hands still holding mine,

we walked back to the beach.

When I went back to the flat, endless corn fields

that were my home,

I thought of the ocean still.

As I got older, and swam every summer

in a small, blue, backyard pool,

I imagined it could take me back

to the blue-grey vastness,

the massive thing that should have been intimidating

with its cold, rolling waves, never totally still,

its unexpectedly volatile nature,

its attempt at bringing me down to its depths,

even when the sun was shining

and the blue sky was clear.

I found, as years went on,

as I travelled south and east and west,

away from the cornfields,

that every ocean spoke to something

deep within me.

From cerulean to slate,

relative calm to rolling chaos,

I felt at peace, no matter where I was.

Floating on my back

in bright blue southern waters,

and walking with my jeans rolled up

in the northern grey ones,

feet numb, heart appeased,

I still felt the kinship I felt so many years before.

I still live near the cornfields,

and I am still so small.

I still long to leave,

to smell the salt on the air,

to see nothing but blue on the horizon,

to return to the tumultuous expanse.

Cold, calm, distant, warm, vehement, comforting.

It contains multitudes, and so do I;

it is full of life, and so am I;

it is blue, and so am I.