'In the old days, I remember a wind that would blow down through the canyons. It was a hot wind called a Santa Ana and it carried with it the smell of warm places. It blew the strongest before dawn across the Point. My friends and I would sleep in our cars and the smell of the offshore wind would often wake us and each morning we knew this would be a special day'.
These are the opening lines to one of my favourite films. Perfect words. Perfect moments described. Everyday at the moment I wake up thinking about the ocean. I wonder what it would be to open my eyes and see her right there, right in front of me, right before my eyes. I take a few day dreamy moments pondering if there'll ever be a time when she is what I will see and hear last thing at night and first thing in the morning. I think about both my desire to be near her and my fear at her overwhelming strength. I consider that without this deeply buried fear of mine that I may love her less, if my weak attempts at staying calm in her presence were convincing then the balance would be different. I am afraid of her and think often of ways that she could take my life, it is the way when swimming comes to you all too late in life. But still I think of her often and I long to be near her. She takes me back to a time long ago, when I would sit at my wooden desk and gaze out of a glassless window frame, out, out, far out to sea. My classroom faced her and I whiled away what felt like an eternity of minutes with fantasies of escape that would lead me running out into her enveloping arms. Away I would go on the locals fishing boat, just me and my ocean, a pair of runaways.
Sometimes I lose the feeling of wanting to be near her and that makes me more afraid than the thought of being alone in her presence and quickly sinking at her feet. When my darker thoughts begin to outway my shinier ones, I remember one of my favourite memories of her, one of my last memories of her. It is me and him and darkness and I am home, in the place where my father spent many days. It is me and him and we are sat close to her edge listening to her lapping waves. We are recording her sound for prosperity. We are gazing at the darkest of nights, with a sky full of glittery stars, like ones you only see in countries with earth that mostly burns the soles of your feet. She licks at our toes and becomes all too familiar, she greedily comes closer and closer still and as our skin is covered in her salty mist we draw closer to one another to keep warm. We bid her farewell with promises to return. As we turn our backs on her, I'm sure I hear her weeping. She calls out to us and without looking back I whisper under my breath to her 'I know, I know, I feel it too'.
