The sea is a long, long way....from me (Low lyrics)

I'm in my ocean mood again.

We got spoiled living out west. Once or twice a year for five or six years in a row we'd drive to Portland Oregon, stay overnight at a hostel or cute hotel, and then drive to the coast the next day. We'd spend a few days there in our favorite B & B, which was a very luxurious place with rooms and porches overlooking the ocean. I loved waking up and falling asleep to the sound of the ocean, and walking along the beach, taking pictures of the patterns in the sand and of interesting wind or water-blown compositions of seaweed and bits of shells. There wasn't much to do in this town other than look out at the ocean from our room or walk around the musty bookstore next door, filled floor-to-ceiling with out-of-print dusty books and cardboard boxes for the 3 or so cats padding around the store. Sometimes we'd drive down to Newport to visit the aquarium or walk along Nye beach or listen to the sea lions bark on the docks in the bay.

On our very first trip to the Pacific coast in 2002 I didn't like the ocean much. Compared with Lake Superior, which I loved, it was loud, wild, rocky, and smelled fishy. It was always draped in fog and very windy. I was also scared of it. There were warning signs all around about possible tsunamis and getting swept away by the tide. There were tide pools full of strange and gelatinous creatures with slimy green arms and spiny backs. You couldn't really hang out on the beach for too long--not only was it too windy to have a sustained conversation but it was chilly and damp.

But after spending a few days and then returning year after year, the ocean got into my blood and now, being so landlocked, I miss it more than ever. We got our fill of an ocean-like lake a couple weeks ago when we escaped the heat and drove to Duluth. It was about 15 degrees cooler there and overcast, and yes--there was fog. We brought a picnic lunch and some of E's toys to the beach and hung out there for the afternoon. The day before, while I was trying to find a vintage bread box at my favorite antique store, I found a neat 1955 edition copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. I had heard about this book but never read it before, so I brought it with me to the beach.

It was the perfect beach read for that gray day. It's a short book so I almost read the whole thing. Mostly it's about solitude, and how solitude is necessary at times: "If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others...Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude." And this: "I walked far down the beach, soothed by the rhythm of the waves, the sun on my bare back and legs, the wind and mist from the spray on my hair. Into the waves and out like a sandpiper. And then home, drenched, drugged, reeling, full to the brim with my day alone; full like the moon before the night has taken a single nibble of it; full as a cup poured up to the lip..." (A.M.L.)

After that day I wanted to read more books like this. If I couldn't go to the ocean this year, I would read about it instead. There's always my copy of "The Edge of the Sea," by Rachel Carson, found at Powell's bookstore a couple years ago (I love her...). I also recently came across a series of short memoirs by Joan Anderson. I'm currently reading "A Year by the Sea" in which she decides to spend a year at her beach cottage on Cape Cod rather than move with her husband to a new city. The other book, which is a sort of follow-up to this memoir is, "A Walk on the Beach," which is all about her chance meeting on the beach with Joan Erikson, who was the wife and collaboraor of the social scientist/psychologist Erik Erikson. I had never heard of her before, but she was a really interesting person. In the 20s she went to Europe to study modern dance with Isadora Duncan. Then later I think she got a master's degree in sociology and wrote books, including "The Universal Bead," and "The Wisdom of the Senses" (both supposedly at the downtown library, but the Wisdom one was missing!). Anyway, the book is full of conversations between Anderson and Erikson (who was 91 years old at the time and still active).

In the prologue, Anderson distilled the essence of Erikson's philosophy:
"Welcome each day like a good meal."

"The essence of a life well-digested comes from knowing your strengths, overdosing on the senses, and remaining active and playful."

"Keep your hands on the plow--push--don't ever stop pushing."

"Always be willing to give a little more energy--the tension should always be there--then your life will never go limp."

And here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
Joan Erikson:
"Learn any skill that opens up the world and sets you free."

"The important thing is to do something, even if it's as simple as making a pile of pebbles. For it is always the doing that leads to the becoming, and before you know it you're on to the next stage of life."

"Either people pay no attention to their clothing and risk being misunderstood or they pay too much and risk being disingenuous. I'm not suggesting that you need a facade. It's just that a total stranger needs to get it the minute you walk over his or her threshold. Your work, your intentions, your goals all become evident when the total package is just right.... You want your individuality to shine....I adopted my look at Harvard right after attending my first faculty wives meeting. There I was in a roomful of women dressed in tweed suits with bouffant hairdos, and I was in shock. Where was the individuality? Would I be expected to conform as well? I walked away from that experience saying no way, not me, and headed straight for a store which sold exotic and colorful clothes from India, buying several pairs of leotards to wear under unusual jackets and smocks."


I'm so glad I came across these books. My appetite for the sea, however, remains to be satisfied. I'm thinking of painting my dining room wall a sea-glass green to go along with my collection of starfish and shells (found not at the beach but bought in a plastic bag at a thrift store in Spokane).