Seasick
Well, homesick for the sea. It's raining in San Francisco and the waves are coming up over the piers and onto the Great Highway and I wish I were there to see it.
Which is probably why I chose the name Amphitrite, the Greek personification of the sea, and the passage from the Odyssey where they name her. Jared says that my eyes look like a kelp-filled bay, and that's something he might be right about. I don't care what those boys say, calling the Lakeshore the "beach." It couldn't be the same.
When we were in Cambria last summer, we were right across from Moonstone Beach, and we could take long walks along the boardwalk to the tide pools and watch the seals and otters playing in the waves. I don't think we found any moonstones. The first time I remember being there, it was after the Urban Agriculture conference in Goleta, and the one seal we saw was busy preening for us-- "don't you like my whiskers?" and showing off his somersaults.
And in Monterey we saw dolphins.
And close to another Cambria, across the world in Wales, in Aberystwyth, we had the smallest hotel room known to man, and the tiny window looked out over the sea and as the sun sets, the sky was indigo-light turquoise near the horizon. Clouds there looked like distant mountains. I could hear nothing but the waves against the dark gray sand. Where the water met the sand, the sea foam was white under the lights of the boulevard. It was a very high tide, and I thought that it climbed still closer. The sea turned black. It was so dark I could not see where the sea ended and the sky began.
I had been reading old myths, and I could have believed in sunken cities. I could have believed in mermaids.
I didn't learn to swim until I was eight, and after that they couldn't drag me from the water for anything. I almost drowned-- twice, so it took me longer than most children to conquer my fascinated fear.
I love the sea. I don't know that it is raining at home, but it is in my mind.
I'm at Calvert. Danny is laughing in the kitchen. I'm going to marry that boy (or maybe Patrick). He just doesn't know it yet.
Which is probably why I chose the name Amphitrite, the Greek personification of the sea, and the passage from the Odyssey where they name her. Jared says that my eyes look like a kelp-filled bay, and that's something he might be right about. I don't care what those boys say, calling the Lakeshore the "beach." It couldn't be the same.
When we were in Cambria last summer, we were right across from Moonstone Beach, and we could take long walks along the boardwalk to the tide pools and watch the seals and otters playing in the waves. I don't think we found any moonstones. The first time I remember being there, it was after the Urban Agriculture conference in Goleta, and the one seal we saw was busy preening for us-- "don't you like my whiskers?" and showing off his somersaults.
And in Monterey we saw dolphins.
And close to another Cambria, across the world in Wales, in Aberystwyth, we had the smallest hotel room known to man, and the tiny window looked out over the sea and as the sun sets, the sky was indigo-light turquoise near the horizon. Clouds there looked like distant mountains. I could hear nothing but the waves against the dark gray sand. Where the water met the sand, the sea foam was white under the lights of the boulevard. It was a very high tide, and I thought that it climbed still closer. The sea turned black. It was so dark I could not see where the sea ended and the sky began.
I had been reading old myths, and I could have believed in sunken cities. I could have believed in mermaids.
I didn't learn to swim until I was eight, and after that they couldn't drag me from the water for anything. I almost drowned-- twice, so it took me longer than most children to conquer my fascinated fear.
I love the sea. I don't know that it is raining at home, but it is in my mind.
I'm at Calvert. Danny is laughing in the kitchen. I'm going to marry that boy (or maybe Patrick). He just doesn't know it yet.
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