The Ocean

When I was a kid, back in Newfoundland on some nameless rocky shore, my Uncle told me to look into the sea and count the waves as they washed up onto the beach. He said that no matter what, the seventh wave I counted would always be the largest. When I asked in disbelief how this could be possible, he mumbled something about moons and hemispheres and turned to walk away. I followed him, gazing behind me, and noting silently that as far as I could see, all the waves looked exactly the same.

I found myself standing today on the same rocky shore, staring at those same waves, on the opposite side of the continent, the mountains of the mainland miles in the distance rising like gigantic sapphire gaurdians above the shimmering ocean. Taking a seat on a pile of driftwood I watch the water heave and rise and fall in an uncanny pattern that wasn't quite monotony and wasn't quite chaos; as if it was a living thing waiting for the right moment to break free of some mysterious bondage.

As I listelessly prod the dried up sea urchins I contemplated the crumbling cement staircases that once led to a pathway on the cliffs above my head, wondering how many more times the sea would have to rise up in high tide before they were beat into oblivion. The emptiness of it all has a way of making you feel like you're the only person on earth. I started to feel the kind of self-pity that comes from being lonely before I noticed the sun beating down on my skin and smelled the salt air breeze and came to a small revelation that the times where I've been lonely are where I've felt most content.

The rushing noise as the waves swarm over the stones and makes a hypnotizing sound as the ocean draws them back in - a hush - like a mother whispering to her child to go to sleep. I begin to count the waves. One... two... three... I've noticed that it kind of has this pull on people, the idea of the sea. They gather around it and they broad upon it and paint it and write about it and sing about it, all of them trying to capture and portray some sort of essence that they can all feel but no one can really completely understand. Four... five... six... It's the concept that there's something vaster than ourselves, absolute in it's own existence, completely independent of human conceivability. I stepped back down onto the beach and watched quizzically as the seventh wave, braver than it's fellows, washed over the dry stones and onto my sneakers.

Leaving a trail of wet footprints on the rocks I went to make my way back up the cliff before the tide came in. I'd be back.