A Letter from The Big Blue
By Hannah McPherson
12/17/12
There was nothing, and then there was me. Then, there became life and earth, but still, there was me. There I was. Here I am. Here I have been for millions upon billions upon trillions of years. I don’t grow rings, like a tree, nor wrinkles like the skin of an old fisherman.
There was once a book about that. The Old Man and the Sea. That’s me. The sea. But, also, the old man.
I take no shape, but most say I am flat or round. I take no solidarity, no realistic whole, but people say I am big and deep. They call me Mariana’s Trench. Though, if they knew, one can always dig a little deeper. One can be as large as he wishes, if only he finds a space to accompany the massive ego he hath grown himself. No, I, the rolling waves of blue, I do not grow or wither, I do not wish. I simply am.
I ebb, I flow. I breathe. You see the foam, don’t you? You see my crests, my troughs. The ripples, the waves. You see me. But, I see you, too.
Inside my soul, deep and old, warm and cold, there are things that live. Not just the creatures, larger than the imagination, more mysterious than it. Not just the plants. Not all. But, trash, landforms, treasures. Not just the boats, sailors. But, stories, adventures, myths. Not just the things one can see with his eyes, but what a man can feel in the mist, taste in the salty air.
You can touch me, but I touch you too. I touch your heart. I touch your mind.
I am a symbol. One of loss, one of freedom. How can I be? I have seven parts in four corners, two hemispheres divided among a million different coordinates of Latitude and Longitude, a thousand sub levels, depths over leagues, and then depths so small they may cease to exist on a sunny day. Yet, I am. I am formless. But in all my years of being, I have formed.
I form land, I form a cause, I form a home, I form when I cannot form at all.
Others must dream of doing the same. I must inspire them. “Row, Row, Row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Life is but a dream.” You must keep rowing, you must keep your sails abroad to catch the wind that meets them. You must move forward. For I cannot move, but I have much to show you.
For, I hold gold, I hold golden ideas, I hold. I’ve held the hold of a million ships. Ships that sail, ships that smuggle, ships at war, ships at sea, never to return again. I hold.
I mentioned before, the freedom that comes with an endless horizon. The freedom that has been found by the tail of one’s seat, at the wheel of a vessel, by the world that lies before a man driven mad by the constrictions of land, the rules of a universe governed by others. Here, there is only me, and upset unpredictable weather brought upon by a God that made only me and all I contain. There is the unknown. The promise. I am a promise land, but I have no land above me. Only below, preserved, and waiting, tempting the next adventurous soul to reach it.
I am much more than a fathom, so do not try to fathom me. I am. I have been. I will be. Those are the basics, but many have made the expansion. Many have shown me more. Have shown themselves. It’s been written, re-written, contradicted, condemned, stated, restated, argued, agreed. But a man will know what he will know, and I will exist as I do exist.
I meet with the sky, I meet with the land, but whom and what I have met, is a much more interesting story. I have met the boots of every pirate from every coast; I have met the timeless ends of so many, both young and old. I have met the conflicts of war, the seekers of a new world, seekers after his own self. I have met the meet of accomplishment and bearing, as I am accomplishment with a bearing.
I am not at a calm, I am at a restless unsettlement. I am the Ocean.
Many fight for me, for my survival, for my cleanliness. They fight for the little sanctuaries, the estuaries. They fight, they fight, and they fight. But, me? I breathe. I inhale, I shift, I slow, I toss, I turn, I roll, I swish, I splash, through day and night, season on season, in every corner of the world. I am. I am. I am. But around me, others are too. Around my blue lapping edges, and along my sandy shoals, there are others that are. They are, they are, they are.
They are thinkers, they are artists, they are souls. They are workers, believers, and families. They are creators of their own world, their own mind-bound existence.
Many moons ago, a man stood at the bow of a ship. He watched the horizon, the path before him. And, I… I just watched him in return, because I was all there was. This man, he wrote down his thoughts. He placed careful penmanship in yellowing pages, stored his wisdom in a leather bound diary. Months later, the book was filled, the thoughts were over. As his ship and crew sank to darkest parts of me, they faded to legends. But, I… I still held the little journal. I began to read it. I have no eyes, but I knew. I had always known.
I am the object of speculation and fear. Sea monsters. I’m no monster. Monsters are a man’s own demons thrown against him. Monsters are the emotions that walk men to the starboard side of things, spread their arms, and show them a lovely view, that push them to do what he would not normally do. Monsters are those who act and think of none but the evil done and the glorious fortunes that shall rain from it. But, I know. The man with the little book knew. No rain comes from evil but sorrow and devastation. Truths like those lie so deep down inside of a person, they may as well lay beneath the surface of something greater and deeper, like myself.
No string of words could accurately describe the amount of thoughts one can think in all the time I’ve been here. No short story or letter can explain the understanding that men have found within the comfort of a sea breeze, or with the world lain out before him. I suppose, it is not the water, or the largeness of a body, nor the open air littered with sea gulls, fiery suns, glowing moons, and twinkling stars that make an ocean of their own; no, those things don’t have answers written upon them, like in the little leather book. They can’t show a man what his heart already knows. But, perhaps the epiphanies are brought upon by simply having the time to think and a new perspective in which to see what was already there. Man is ignorant to assume that he has to travel miles and miles to use something he keeps with him all the day long.
One travels in circles, travels on courses and paths, travels, travels, travels. But, one day, each and every thing shows up in one destination. The end.
It doesn’t matter if you’re not finished yet, if you think you haven’t made it; you were what you were in the world, you did what you could do, and those who saw it saw it, and those that didn’t will never be the wiser. But your story, your life, your choices, they will be felt. They will cause a butterfly effect. I don’t make the tsunamis. It’s the breath of wind from the delicate minute wing on a creature that has no idea the potential contained in something that a butterfly does every day. That he himself has always had the power to do.
The little things make up all the big ones. There’s no power in being an Ocean. I can only do for others what they can do for themselves, and they themselves can only do what they can. I can only tell what has been told over and over, phrased a million different ways; documentaries, books, fables, myths, research, experience. Except, this time, I can tell it from the way I see it. A simple letter, showing just one more perspective, showing just one more tender soul what he already knew, but in a different color, a different form.
Though I am formless, I have formed. Though I am more than a fathom, I have fathomed.
I am the Ocean, and this is my story.