The Sea, the Sea, the Sea…
On a friend’s page, a conversation about being authentic became, in part, a discussion of what types of beaches people like. As a sea person, I had to put in my few coins’ worth.
I’ve been lucky enough to have been on Mediterranean, Atlantic (both sides) and Pacific (ditto) beaches. Sandy beaches, pebbly beaches, rocky beaches. Each type lends itself to different activities and moods. Some are for walking, others for swimming. Some for gazing at magnificent waves, some for watching falling stars, some for exploring sealife in the shallows. Some for collecting driftwood or shells, some to gather around makeshift fires and watch the fires in the sky. Some for lounging at taverns or shacks on their edges, others for wandering along tree-covered paths.
But forever united by the sea, the sea, the sea.
And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet
the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance
else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar
hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know
not for what they listen.
—
But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven;
and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow on the waters
that was soon lost in the West. There still he stood far into the night,
hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of
Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.
Beside him stood Merry and Pippin, and they were silent.
“I aear cân ven na mar.” Or, to use a refrain from my own fiction, “The sea makes us and the sea takes us.”
“Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere, for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moondriven sea.”
Deeply evocative post, all at once reminiscent of the ways the ocean and all its facets sparks inspiration and deftly encompassing the moods of different kinds of beaches.
As lovely as the Earthsea archipelago! (smile)