metropolis m

I love you, but I know you do not care about me. That is ok with me. I like that epic, aching feeling of being ignored. I don’t know why my dear sea, but when I first got on that surfboard and rode your waves I knew this was what I’d been missing all my life. Finally I found a way to spend hours in the water without having to swim and without being contained by some structure like a boat. For a water lover like me this was a revelation. It was you, that great blue blob that filled that black hole inside of me. I felt touched by a teenage sadness that I hadn’t discovered you earlier.

I love you sea, because you offer me contradictions. When I enter your water my human dimension is being extended to a kinship with something non-human. The institution of water, it rules from the head down. The voice of my body is no longer governed by reason. Fears, drifts and desires take the mic. That’s why I sing for you, dear Sea: "From the body of the sea to the body of me". It might sound silly, but I am a little bit afraid of you and I like that. The more I fear the more I desire life. A proportional exchange; because ultimately the things I live for are the things I die for.

Still, even though I fear you, I feel invited with an integrity I normally never encounter. It makes me remember my place in a universe with no special privilege for humans on this planet. I feel humbled by this awareness. The daily drama of my intellect dissolves. My thoughts get washed up on the beach and make space for a tinkling delight. I look at them from a distance, a huge pile of disorganized waste. Now, being divorced from my own negativity leaves me with nothing left to escape from. It is my return to the moment.

I often miss your good waves, because of my good ideas. That is when you slap me, because I know you don’t care about my ideas. They are useless in your existence, in your experience of time. You just keep doing your thing, like Tina Turner, rolling. Because no fact stays true for long when it’s reflected by something as ancient as you, my dear sea. The only thing that matters to you is what is felt most deeply. And plastic, I know you don’t like that.

Who are you I wonder? Every time we meet you are different. Sometimes you feel like a grandma, sometimes you are a fierce and untamable maiden and sometimes you are like a young, innocent boy singing out in the choir, completely in tune with his surroundings. You never leave my mind.
I am extending you while you are re-inventing me. I know that love is just something to mundane for you, but are we having a relationship, dear sea? Could I be gay after all? Or do you feel so familiar because I am water too.

I am trying to defeat my human capacity by walking on water. It is out of question to cheat. This is your game where neither the political nor the spiritual rule. I can’t fake anything here. Perhaps Jesus was a surfer too. You probably know, maybe one day you will tell me.

Saying I am a surfer sometimes feels oddly religious, like I’m Christian or a Muslim. But I acknowledge that there is a truth to this. If surfing is my religion then seeing the sunrise from your waters is the cathedral. But your cathedral has no walls. It is a place without promises. Neither are there any picture postcards of some otherworldly, never-ending holiday destinations. You are not claiming the absolute, not even for the sake of a good argument. Somehow the only thing you show is that everything is exactly as it should be.

Dear sea, it is through your permanence and unshared stories that I become aware of my own ending. Nothing of me will last. There are many days I think I prefer to spend the rest of my time as a bad surfer then an OK artist. Or really, I am just going to say it,.. as a mermaid.

Love,
M

THIS TEXT WAS PUBLISHED IN METROPOLIS M No 5-2013