The new-year has started with a beckoning from the seas.
My table calendar, for January 2017 has a ship with its sails unfurled, braving the fierce sea. I wish I could magically jump into the calendar page and sail off in the majestic ship! Not because reality is any less adventurous, but coz’ fantasy is always enticing!
The first week of the year saw me visiting the west coast and spending some time on the shores of the great ocean, looking into the far distances; feeling timid and small. It’s when I look at the big ocean, imagine the great treasures she holds in her depths; that I realize, I am but a small pearl that could easily be tossed into her depths in-consequentially. Being near the ocean, saw me look ahead in uncertainty and look back with a little bit of nostalgia, pain and regret all mixed up like three flavors in a giant jumbo ice cream, topped with many wonderful nuts and sauces of happy carefree memories!
Staring into the sea has always left me speechless. For a while I kept trying to find that one perfect song that would make me feel like being close to the ocean; but no words, no song, no poem, no music, no feeling can soothe, excite, ignite and erode my psyche like the sea can. My love for the seas has been as old as me. For, the sea puts me in my place, puts me in perspective, lets me wander off into its depths, carries me along its waves, and lets me lash out like an angry wave would against hard rocks.
I read the “Old man and the sea” by Ernest Hemingway this week. A simple, and yet, not so simple book that won its writer a noble prize for literature. It’s a 100-page read that is intriguing. I was hooked on, and was transported to the old fisherman’s side. With such intense simplicity the tale has been narrated! His love for the sea and an insight into his thinking make the book, a good bed-time read. The story beautifully describes the devotion of the young boy to the old man. The struggles the old man faces in the sea, kept me on tiptoes to see if he will emerge victorious. Wisdom, acceptance, mutual respect for all life on the earth and inside the ocean; the old man seems to personify a graceful old age! But is the story, just saying what it does, or is there a higher hidden meaning? I kept looking for some hidden meaning, tried to read between the lines; is there something I’m missing completely? Well, only other readers can tell me!
Oceans and droplets
Boats and ships
Sharks and shrimps
Calms and storms!
A coexistence of the big and the small; the sea teaching me life lessons!
So, the year for me has begun on a ‘sea’ mode. Well, I’m glad, coz’ I’m a water person. I’m awaiting all the different hued ‘sea’sons!