in respect of the ocean

When we were young we had no respect for the ocean.  The pervasive summer smell of sunscreen and warm skin was thick, clinging on to all the crevices of our summer universe – the walls of our houses; the wheels of our bikes.  It was a scent that followed us around as we ran haphazardly through July and August. 

We waited all year to be water creatures, and as soon as the last school bus left the parking lot at the end of June we emerged from our land-dwelling skins and dove into the Atlantic Ocean.  People tried to tell us to be careful, but we didn’t know how.  The tragedies of the ocean were beyond any kind of nightmares we were capable of having then.  We swam on poor days, in the middle of thunder and lightning storms.  We dove and jumped into water from wharves when the tide was out.  We went out from the harbour in rubber dingys, ocean black and sky grey.  We swam out to the middle of the harbour without thinking of being tired, or being dehydrated; of any harm ever coming our way.  We swam and swam, our legs turned to jelly and we didn’t care; we swam some more.  The ocean was our comrade and we had waited all year to be lost within the billions of droplets of salt sea water that made up this faithful friend.  No one could tell us what to do here. 

As we got older, we began to watch the lines set in on people’s faces: widows and widowers; mothers; daughters.  These lines were not the crow’s feet created by a life of smiling too much.  They were permanent marks of sadness; despair; hatred.  They were the lines of fearful respect that we hadn’t had growing up, running wild in a cove surrounded by ocean.

That morning that the town woke up to flags at half-mast and to empty wharves, the ocean seemed to look different.  The blue sky made the waves look aqua and cheerful, but all of a sudden we knew different.  We hadn’t understood how to respect that great, deep water when we were young, but suddenly the heavy-gutted responsibility of those depths was seated at the front of all of our tables.  We tried to look away, but this time we couldn’t.