Ocean Muse
From what I’ve read, some writers are visited by a ‘muse’ for literary inspiration.
I commonly use such a tool, which comes in the form of the ocean and, as far as can be imagined, is without malice. To the sailor in me, that’s a good thing. I have a bulkhead of memories in my brain, full of tempestuous seas.
Though no longer walking the earth, Dad was at home on the waves. By his admission, Dad always felt a slight unnerving twitch when his vessel dipped into a trough. Free falling into a dark blue valley, then shuddering violently as the boat hit the bottom of the crest. The sea, he always said, takes those who love her most. He was right, but it didn’t take him; I gifted him to the ocean after a lifetime of fishing.
The mystery is all there is to mystery unless you count on its coming. There is nowhere with an ocean view where I cannot see his vessel as clearly as in a Monet painting. Some men turn for home when winter comes; he did not. The sea held Dad, wearing a linen shawl, until he was home.
Dad cared nothing for the adverse implications that dogged mere humans. The salinity of the oceans diluted his blood. He taught me that the most ‘hostile’ environment is the one we live in, not the barren, hard, savage ocean where he worked.
Dad never asked me about writing. I never had much to say about it, how I do it, or why. Dad wasn’t a difficult man to deal with, nor hard to please. He made happiness his life’s habit.
Dad was my ocean, my stars, my God, and all His heaven.
Before the first day of school we took a picnic to the harbor. It was thick with tourists, and the air’s fragrance was suntan lotion and ice cream. We sat under the harbor wall in the cool shade. I paddled around, waiting for Dad. He had gone searching between the rocks. I caught the expression on his face — an excited, gleaming smile. He came wading into the water, his hands holding seashells and sea pebbles.
Whenever Dad was home, he told stories about the mighty seas — the deep-sea fish, unacknowledged but living all the same. I enjoyed the summers, but far more, the winters. The tourists had gone home. The prevailing winds, floods, and storms are an integral part of coastal living, a time when the sea was at its most powerful.
“Hold my hand, son,” he said, smiling.
I took hold of his hand. Its strength, knowing all its work and its beauty.
“Put these in your pocket, lad.”
I don’t know how or why, but it’s a moment that feels an hour long when writing. I have that handful of shells to this day.
I look back from this vision of the sea. Dad, raising his hand to me. His son is a child with the unique ability to lose himself in a mist that covers his reality. I have protected myself well. I will always be what I write: happy, sad, rich, or poor. I am what the words say and no longer feel any ambition to prove otherwise.
My work gets done. Life moves along, and sometimes I forget about Dad for a few minutes every day.
Well, maybe less than a few.
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