March of the Winter

It seems odd to me that some people are robbed of the enjoyment of a beach. Ever since I was born I have felt an affinity with the ocean; it’s giving, healing water and yet its desire to destroy. It is a thing that cannot be tamed, cannot be loved. And many have fallen victim to it, many many have died. I had an uncle once who I never met that drowned in the ocean, so I too have reason to be in reverent fear of its power. But I do not like to think of the ocean this way, as a force which can kill. I prefer to think of it as a rough love which knows no restraint. I am reminded of Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”. I think of Lennie holding a tiny mouse in his oversized hand, so enthralled with it’s movement that he unknowingly crushes it’s tiny vertebrae, and even as it remains lifeless has no understanding of the weight of his actions; only that he loved the creature flawlessly and passionately. It is so that I imagine the oceans rough waves. They are not cruel, they are love of a pure yet misguided kind. It is made clear to me now why sailors and pirates of my literature have fallen in love with the sea, personified it, and characterized it with the gender of a woman. I am that ocean. I too can only love in rough, often fatal blows.