Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul (14 page)

My friends came and helped drag me out onto the sand. I sat dazed and sputtering, trying to catch my breath while they all talked about what a great ride it had been. Not for me. I finally began to breathe a little easier when I opened my eyes and saw the legs of a man in white twill pants. I followed them to the man’s face and immediately lowered my head, waiting for the lecture. It did not come.

And it never did. My uncle walked me home. We had lunch and went sailing in the afternoon after the sea had quieted. He never once mentioned my having disobeyed him.

Some years later, after my college commencement ceremony, my family had the usual send-the-kid-out-into-the-world dinner. At one point we began to talk about the most important lessons we each had managed to learn. I remembered that day at the beach when my uncle stood over me on the sand as I tried to get my breath and said nothing. I asked him why he had done that, and he said, “I didn’t know whether to hug you or kick you in the butt, so silence seemed to be the best option. Besides, the sea is the finest teacher there is. I could see that you had learned what you needed to know.”

He was right about that. I’ve loved the sea all my life and have spent many days sailing or walking beaches. But since that amazing day when the sea became my teacher I’ve respected it even more than loved it. It is, indeed, a powerful teacher. I looked at my family seated around that table and thought how good it was to be alive, to be with them and to have had once in my youth such an unforgettable and forgiving teacher.

Walker Meade

A Prayer for the Ocean

T
o stand at the edge of the sea . . . is to have
knowledge of things that are as eternal as any
earthly life can be.

Rachel Carson
Under the Sea-Wind

My life’s passion for knowing and feeling the peace of God led me to live on Maui. Somehow, the sacredness of this vast expanse of blue inspires me more here than any other place on Earth. In awe, I contemplate the creator’s hand each day in the immense waters surrounding me; in the whales and their babies, with their mystical songs; in the dolphins and their gentle playfulness; in the magnificent, changing kaleidoscope of reef fish, starfish and turtles; in the infinite canvas of creativity beneath this water. My heart expands when I contemplate the mystery, continuity and tranquility I’m offered by the sea.

Its lessons are eternal.

The ocean reminds me to be fluid and flow with life. It helps me to remember that everything has a rhythm and to respect those cycles. It inspires me to shine like the sunlight that dances across the water and to reflect as the moon and stars do on a quiet night. To remember that life is as the ocean itself, ever-changing, and to understand that I cannot control everything. It reminds me to deeply breathe in the new and exhale the old with love, much as the tides ebb and flow. To appreciate beauty, even in a storm, and to rise above the turbulence.

The ocean has been my greatest teacher, and daily I give thanks for the insights and serenity it has provided. Daily I pray that the world will protect and respect this sacred, God-given resource so it may continue to inspire, heal and bless those who come after us on this beautiful planet.

Wyland

The Perfect Shell

I
seem to have been like a child playing on the
seashore, finding now and then a prettier shell
than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay
undiscovered before me.

Isaac Newton

When I was three years old, my parents took me to the beach for the first time. I remember how quickly I fell in love with the smell of the salty air, the roar of the crashing waves on the shore and the feeling of wet sand between my toes. I was fascinated by all of the different shells, pebbles and stones embedded in the sand. It was then that I began my hobby of collecting seashells, always on the lookout for something new and strange, always amazed at how unique each one was.

After three years, my collection was quite impressive. I had clamshells, some mussels, a scallop shell here and there—all equally amazing to a six-year-old. One day, I was standing at the beach feeling the cool water run over my feet when the biggest, most beautiful conch shell I had ever seen rolled in with the tide. It was one of those shells that held the sound of the ocean, and the reflection from the sun made it glow bright shades of pink and ivory. The shell was perfect. I reached down and, for an instant, felt the smooth exterior brush against my fingertips. My heart pounded in awe at such a discovery. Suddenly, the tide crashed in, tore the shell from my grasp and sent it hurtling back into the sea. I stood there, stunned, confused over what had just happened. I couldn’t bear to move.
Maybe it will come back,
I thought.
Maybe if I just wait
a while, if I am patient, it will return.
I sat down in the wet sand, letting the tide rush over me, barely noticing the salty water through my tears.

The shell never did return, and I have now spent my life searching for it. It seems to be a theme in my life, I have always thought, this shell escaping. Always coming so close to perfection and having the object of my desire snatched away from me at the last second. The parallel between my lost shell and so many events in my life has been an unsettling mystery. I have spent years looking for what might have been. Hundreds of hours staring into the ocean waiting for the answers to rush over me in the salttinged wind. Searching with nothing to show for it but a long, depressing string of broken relationships, missed opportunities and lost loved ones. Isn’t that the story of all of our lives, though? We are always looking for that perfect mate, the perfect job or the perfect situation to grace us with its presence, but it never does. Does it really exist, after all?

I am almost thirty years old now, and I still collect seashells. My husband and I take our children to the beach as often as possible, and I have tried to share my love of the ocean with them. My daughter has developed an affinity for collecting shells and stones. When she was six years old, she made an amazing discovery, too. I saw her running toward me, sand flying in all directions, hands waving in the air, smiling the brightest smile imaginable.

In her right hand was a small, dull and raggedy, ivory-colored and rather ordinary-looking clamshell. Slightly out of breath, she stopped before me and declared in a loud, excited voice, “Mommy, I have found the most beautiful shell in the world for you! It’s perfect!” I felt the tears begin to well in my eyes as I looked at her and realized that this was the perfect shell. It was the one I had spent my entire life looking for because it was given with perfect love. The perfection I sought had been there all the time. I just needed to know where to look.

Jennifer Zambri-Dickerson

The Day at the Beach

A
fter a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that
we live in a material world.

Pam Shaw

Not long ago, I came to one of those bleak periods that many of us encounter from time to time, a sudden drastic dip in the graph of living when everything goes stale and flat, energy wanes, enthusiasm dies. The effect on my work was frightening. Every morning I clenched my teeth and muttered: “Today life will take on some of its old meaning. You’ve got to break through this thing. You’ve got to.”

But the barren days dragged on, and the paralysis grew worse. The time came when I knew I needed help.

The man I turned to was a doctor. Not a psychiatrist, just a doctor. He was older than I, and under his surface gruffness lay great wisdom and experience. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” I told him miserably, “but I just seem to have come to a dead end. Can you help me?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. He made a tent of his fingers and gazed at me thoughtfully for a long while. Then, abruptly, he asked, “Where were you happiest as a child?”

“As a child?” I echoed. “At the beach, I suppose. We had a summer cottage there. We all loved it.”

He looked out the window and watched the October leaves sifting down. “Are you capable of following instructions for a single day?”

“I think so,” I said, ready to try anything.

“All right. Here’s what I want you to do.”

He told me to drive to the beach alone the following morning, arriving not later than nine o’clock. I could take some lunch, but I was not to read, write, listen to the radio or talk to anyone. “In addition,” he said, “I’ll give you a prescription to be taken every three hours.”

He tore off four prescription blanks, wrote a few words on each, folded them, numbered them and handed them to me. “Take these at nine, twelve, three and six.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

He gave me a short honk of laughter. “You won’t think I’m joking when you get my bill!”

The next morning, with little faith, I drove to the beach. It was lonely, all right. A northeaster was blowing; the sea looked gray and angry. I sat in the car, the whole day stretching emptily before me. Then I took out the first of the folded slips of paper. On it was written:
Listen carefully.

I stared at the two words. I thought,
The man must be
crazy.
He had ruled out music and newscasts and human conversation. What else was there?

I raised my head and listened. There were no sounds but the steady roar of the sea, the croaking cry of a gull, the drone of some aircraft overhead. All these sounds were familiar.

I got out of the car. A gust of wind slammed the door with a sudden clap of sound.
Am I supposed to listen carefully
to things like that?
I asked myself.

I climbed a dune and looked out over the deserted beach. Here the sea bellowed so loudly that all other sounds were lost.
And yet,
I thought suddenly,
there must be
sounds beneath sounds—the soft rasp of drifting sand, the tiny
wind-whisperings in the dune grasses—if the listener gets close
enough to hear them.

Impulsively, I ducked down and, feeling fairly ridiculous, thrust my head into a clump of seaweed. Here I made a discovery: If you listen intently, there is a fractional moment in which everything pauses, waiting. In that instant of stillness, the racing thoughts halt. The mind rests.

I went back to the car and slid behind the wheel. Listen carefully. As I listened again to the deep growl of the sea, I found myself thinking about the white-fanged fury of its storms. Then I realized I was thinking of things bigger than myself—and there was relief in that.

Even so, the morning passed slowly. The habit of hurling myself at a problem was so strong that I felt lost without it.

By noon the wind had swept the clouds out of the sky, and the sea had a hard, polished and merry sparkle. I unfolded the second “prescription.” And again I sat there, half-amused and half-exasperated. Three words this time:
Try reaching back.

Back to what? To the past, obviously. But why, when all my worries concerned the present or the future?

I left the car and started tramping reflectively along the dunes. The doctor had sent me to the beach because it was a place of happy memories. Maybe that was what I was supposed to reach for—the wealth of happiness that lay half-forgotten behind me.

I decided to work on these vague impressions as a painter would, retouching the colors, strengthening the outlines. I would choose specific incidents and recapture as many details as possible. I would visualize people complete with dress and gestures. I would listen (carefully) for the exact sound of their voices, the echo of their laughter.

The tide was going out now, but there was still thunder in the surf. So I chose to go back twenty years to the last fishing trip I made with my younger brother. He had died during World War II, but I found that if I closed my eyes and really tried, I could see him with amazing vividness, even the humor and eagerness in his eyes.

In fact, I saw it all: the ivory scimitar of beach where we fished, the eastern sky smeared with sunrise, the great rollers creaming in, stately and slow. I felt the backwash swirl warm around my knees, saw the sudden arc of my brother’s rod as he struck a fish, heard his exultant yell. Piece by piece I rebuilt it, clear and unchanged under the transparent varnish of time. Then it was gone.

I sat up slowly.
Try reaching back. Happy people are usually
assured, confident people. If, then, you deliberately reached back
and touched happiness, might there not be released little flashes of
power, tiny sources of strength?

This second period of the day went more quickly. As the sun began its long slant down the sky, my mind ranged eagerly through the past, reliving some episodes, uncovering others that had been completely forgotten. Across all the years, I remembered events and knew from the sudden glow of warmth that no kindness is ever wasted or completely lost.

By three o’clock the tide was out, and the sound of the waves was only a rhythmic whisper, like a giant breathing. I stayed in my sandy nest, feeling relaxed and content— and a little complacent. The doctor’s prescriptions, I thought, were easy to take.

But I was not prepared for the next one. This time the three words were not a gentle suggestion. They sounded more like a command.
Reexamine your motives.