So, why should a view with a double horizon be such a comfort? Why should the place where sky meets water meets land like an ever-shifting ravening clockwork be the only place I feel completely at rest? I've postulated it is because the ocean alone can drown out my internal voice. I especially like rocky beaches, where the retreating tide drags at a thousand stones, roaring with every breath. But then there was that beach in Juno, with no tide at all, just small lapping wavelets fingering the shore, and the rose-and-butter-tinted light over a small island, and the dolphins slipping like pinwheels through the mist. Is that even a real memory? I was there, but nothing real should look so like a fantasy.
So it's the roar, but also the light, reflecting in every possible manner--glittering, harsh, glowing, rich, angled, dim. So many surfaces to touch and none demanding. Also the wind, which isn't shy about laying its palms against my cheeks and laughing as it steals away my clandestine songs. Also the memories of so many days spent in companionable solitude with my brothers, sculpting sand, running until our heels wore smooth. Also my father, ready with a camera or to snatch us from the waves, and my mother, offering a bowl of black olives, which taste wholly perfect, even gritty. Also slick black basalt and trailing seaweed in the froth. And the symmetry of shells and small patterns. And white salt crusts around my ankles. And the sun, or not, because I breathe better in the rain.
There's a man walks up and down Highway 101 carrying a full-sized wooden cross on wheels. He bears it from Newport through Neskowin to Oceanside, maybe farther, walking slowly along the cliffside perpendicular to the sun. I never have my camera in reach when I spot him. I couldn't get the shot anyway--there would be no way to include the view to sea, to show the vastness against which he walks, shouldering a burden of his own construction, which he could so easily hurl to the waves at any time and send his self-incrimination bobbing out to China.
Maybe that's also why I love it: the ocean carries it all away and slyly deposits other gifts. You don't need that cross: here, have a fishhook. An empty refrigerator. A peice of string for your finger, to remember. A waiting shell.
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