Melancholia

Once, when I was in Ohio (where there are no beaches anywhere near, unless you count Lake Erie, which I don't) I was pretending to be at the beach. I put beachy music on in the car, looked up only at the deep blue sky, and felt the breeze. I was telling someone about this, and I said, "If I close my eyes and listen hard enough, I can almost hear the ocean."

They said, "Um, you can't hear the ocean from here. It's too far away."

.....

Yeah, I know, thanks for a) not understanding imagery and
                                                    b) ruining the fantasy.

Well, after over a year of living in California, I finally made it to the beach last weekend.  A friend and I drove to Malibu, plunked our stuff down on the white sand, and breathed deeply the ocean air.  The Pacific Ocean is of the bluest blue, beautiful, and it is, in a word, frigid.  I could waste away staring at the ocean, the ebb and flow. But from the warmth of the beach, not while in the ocean itself. I can't believe people actually swim in it. But I guess, if that's all you know, you just do it.

The Atlantic Ocean, however, is warm. It has a more greyish hue, more restless somehow. Especially off New England. I love to walk along the shore and pick up shells and feel the ocean tug and pull at my feet. Come to me, it says. Its what I grew up with. We didn't live close to the beach, but because my parents liked to go, we went fairly often during the summers. Although I never actually spent much time in the ocean itself, I love going to it. When your destination is 'the ocean' it makes traveling more like a pilgrimage. I will come to you, and lay on your shores, and stare at you with longing until my eyes can't stay open anymore. I feel like I am always trying to get there, some place in the depth of my being.


It was good to get to the beach, with a friend. But I will always and forever be an east coast girl, and I will always long for my grey, restless sea.