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Dear Sea,

I love you, but I know you do not care about me. That’s okay 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 a surfboard and rode your waves, I knew this was what I’d been missing all my life. Finally I had 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, a great blue blob, who filled the black hole inside of me. I felt a twinge of teenage sadness that I hadn’t discovered you earlier.

I love you, Sea, because you offer me contradictions. When I enter your waters my human dimension extends to a kinship with something non-human. The realm of water rules from below the head. The voice of my body is no longer governed by reason. Fears, drifts and desires take the microphone. 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 – invited with an integrity I normally never encounter. It makes me remember my place in the universe, in which there are no special privileges 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, making space for a tinkling delight. I look at them from a distance, a huge pile of disorganized waste. Now, divorced from my own negativity, there is nothing for me to escape from. This is my return to the moment.

I often miss your 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 on and on. 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 affects your being 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 untameable maiden, and sometimes you are like a young, innocent boy singing in a choir, completely in tune with his surroundings. You are always on my mind.

I am extending to you while you are re-inventing me. I know that love is something too 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 overcome my human limitations by walking on water. It is out of the 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 saying I’m ‘a Christian’ or ‘a Muslim’. But I acknowledge that there is some 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 untold stories that I become aware of my own ending. Nothing of me will last. There are many days when I think I would prefer to spend the rest of my time as a bad surfer than as an okay artist. Or actually – I am just going to say it – as a mermaid.

In de rubriek Brief aan wordt een persoon uit de (inter)nationale kunstwereld gevraagd een open brief te schrijven aan een of meerdere personen, bestaand of niet, om een kwestie die hem of haar raakt aan te kaarten.

Melanie Bonajo is beeldend kunstenaar uit Amsterdam.