The Ocean

The sea is heavy water. So salted that it feels more like a mix of fresh water and mercury, the ocean slides over and around my feet in a dance. It feels like I should be able to walk on it, with or without faith. I should be able to carry a handful of it with minimal leakage. It is substantial.

The sea is also an ocean of metaphors. The waves and depths could be emotions. The tides, the shorelines, the doldrums, the hidden flora and fauna, the creatures of the deep... what fertile substance for the imagination and ideas.

But mostly, the sea is a container. It's full of salt water, but it contains history, aeons of grief and hopes and motivations. It contains possibility. It is indomitable power contained in a lulling shush. It contains secrets and you could die of exposure on it. It contains water and salt, the consumption of both so necessary to our living, but unconsumable.

Like Africa, the ocean is a place where everything eats everything. I am consumed by the idea of it.