I love the sea because it renders me speechless. It drowns out the never-ending inner conversation that overwhelms me. The sea takes all my words away and makes me listen as she speaks.
I arrive at the beach with waves of thoughts lapping at the shores of my mind, washing away my tiny seashells of happiness and darkening my skies with anxiety. My fears roar, and my anger sprays as these waves of thought crash against the rock-solid ridges of my idealisms.
Then suddenly, I am confronted by this solemn, infinite expanse of water. Her turquoise glow shifts to sapphire blue and moss green, then from slate to gunmetal grey in a dynamic display. The moment you say the sea is blue, she transforms into something indescribable, challenging you.
She is the mirror of the sky and the seabed, reflecting truths above me and truths I cannot see.
Her soft hum and rhythmic lapping can lull me to sleep, only to jolt me back to wakefulness with the sudden roar of her crashing waves.
Brackish droplets in the wind kiss my cheeks in benediction one moment, and the next, I am breathless, drowned in a sky-high spindrift baptism.
The sea breeze smells good. She fills my lungs with her warm, salty scent—sometimes laced with a faint hint of sulfur and fish—enticing my tired soul to her sprightly one.
The fine sea strand, freckled with mineral-rich blackness, stretches towards eternity. It buries my tired feet in her warm and soft embrace while unearthing the fondest memories of lost years.
This pearly sand holds treasures from the deep sea. Tiny sea anemones in shallow seawater pools, the cries of gulls, busy sand crabs, conch shells, starfish, empty clam shells, stray seaweed, driftwood, cuttlebones, and fragments of coral tell me that, just like life, even death can be beautiful. If I hold a conch shell to my ear, I will hear the sigh of the ocean. So, who am I to declare a conch shell empty and dead?
The rise and fall of the tide tell the story of life. The moon never fails to draw the sea. The sea is ever influenced by the moon. Aren’t we, too, affected by the gravity of those around us?
The sea asks me, “What do you know?” And all I can say is, “Nothing.”
Then, when I finally leave the beach, she doesn’t forget to return all the words she took away from me—so that I can write about her beauty and wisdom.