Category Archives: ocean

On the beach

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Over the recent spring break, I went to the beach. The weather was cold and windy, and the afternoon I went down to the beach, I only had to share the view of the Gulf with a bunch of windswept seagulls who didn’t seem overjoyed with life at that moment. The wind blew steadily across the sand, and I could feel tiny grains of it on my face like little needles. My mouth felt gritty and dry. Whitecaps dotted the ocean just off the beach and surf was at times over five feet high. Only a few oddballs like me were keeping the seagulls company. The sky was a leaden gray color, if you call that a color–more of an anti-color if anything. The air was moist, and either there was some spray in the air or there was a little mist falling from that dull sky. Two guys sold firewood from the back of a metal container, but they were as solitary as I was. Random fishermen stood tending their lines, turning their faces from the wind. I looked at my tracks in the sand as if I were the last person on earth. On a day when the beach should have been full of spring breakers, sun, warmth, and sand, it was a lonely, cold place with only the usual suspects–fisherman and seagulls. I felt like a solitary shipwreck survivor who has not only lost his ship, but his way in life as well. The wind blew, a seagull complained, a jeep with some errant young people went buy without making a sound. I left to go look for something to quench my thirst.

On mermaids

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No, I haven’t seen any lately. As a medievalist I am painfully aware that the people I study and write about had mermaid issues. The medieval world was full of creatures that have long since faded into extinction. Unicorns, you don’t see as many unicorns as you used to either, but mermaids have pretty much faded from the collective consciousness of mankind, except for sailors and other seafaring types. The mermaid, a half-female, half-fish, is a hybrid creature that arises directly out of the subconscious of unruly minds and over-active imaginations. I think. Sailors have spotted them across the globe, resting on the rocks of faraway wild lands into which civilization had not yet crept. Hybrid creatures, though not too uncommon–the platypus and the bat, for example–are not what most people expect. The griffin, the centaur or the minotaur are three hybrid species which are both misunderstood and feared and are often difficult to find these days. Mermaids are problematic in the sense that they seem to provoke desire in the sailors viewing them. The male gaze goes berserk, runs amok, you might say with sexual desire while viewing these creatures. Freud would probably say that mermaids don’t exist at all and are only the product of an overactive imagination and a repressed libido. Although the rational empiricist might buy such drivel, I think mermaids should be shown the benefit of the doubt about their very existence. That they should flee from civilization should come as no surprise. Outsiders would just try to capture them and either enslave them or put them on display. Capitalism just works that way. That they should be shy and retiring should also come as no surprise since they often have to deal with half-crazed out-of-control sailors who are probably in danger sailing too close to the rocks to see the mermaids. Mermaids turn out to be their own kind of hazard–attractive, but dangerous. Ships don’t sail very well unless they have water under their keel, not nasty rocks or dangerous reefs. The existence of mermaids suggests the existence of mermen as well, but neither artists nor scientists have dealt with this obvious problem. I have nothing to say about merchildren, perhaps they only ever come ashore when they are adults. There have been many documentaries made about mermaids, and the mythology concerning mermaids and their desire to have legs is well-known. The obvious clothing-optional issues of merpeople present serious problems for filming or photographing these beings, unless shells and hair are strategically placed to prevent Victorian repressions from being provoked or assaulted. If you see a mermaid on any of your future voyages, you would be well-advised to keep sailing and leave well-enough alone.

On mermaids

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No, I haven’t seen any lately. As a medievalist I am painfully aware that the people I study and write about had mermaid issues. The medieval world was full of creatures that have long since faded into extinction. Unicorns, you don’t see as many unicorns as you used to either, but mermaids have pretty much faded from the collective consciousness of mankind, except for sailors and other seafaring types. The mermaid, a half-female, half-fish, is a hybrid creature that arises directly out of the subconscious of unruly minds and over-active imaginations. I think. Sailors have spotted them across the globe, resting on the rocks of faraway wild lands into which civilization had not yet crept. Hybrid creatures, though not too uncommon–the platypus and the bat, for example–are not what most people expect. The griffin, the centaur or the minotaur are three hybrid species which are both misunderstood and feared and are often difficult to find these days. Mermaids are problematic in the sense that they seem to provoke desire in the sailors viewing them. The male gaze goes berserk, runs amok, you might say with sexual desire while viewing these creatures. Freud would probably say that mermaids don’t exist at all and are only the product of an overactive imagination and a repressed libido. Although the rational empiricist might buy such drivel, I think mermaids should be shown the benefit of the doubt about their very existence. That they should flee from civilization should come as no surprise. Outsiders would just try to capture them and either enslave them or put them on display. Capitalism just works that way. That they should be shy and retiring should also come as no surprise since they often have to deal with half-crazed out-of-control sailors who are probably in danger sailing too close to the rocks to see the mermaids. Mermaids turn out to be their own kind of hazard–attractive, but dangerous. Ships don’t sail very well unless they have water under their keel, not nasty rocks or dangerous reefs. The existence of mermaids suggests the existence of mermen as well, but neither artists nor scientists have dealt with this obvious problem. I have nothing to say about merchildren, perhaps they only ever come ashore when they are adults. There have been many documentaries made about mermaids, and the mythology concerning mermaids and their desire to have legs is well-known. The obvious clothing-optional issues of merpeople present serious problems for filming or photographing these beings, unless shells and hair are strategically placed to prevent Victorian repressions from being provoked or assaulted. If you see a mermaid on any of your future voyages, you would be well-advised to keep sailing and leave well-enough alone.

On shells

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On a recent trip to the beach, I picked up shells. Who doesn’t, but I’m wondering why. A friend had recently gone to the beach as well, and she wanted to show me her shells. Certainly, some shells are dramatic with spectacular spots or striping, unusual forms and sizes, they are small sculptures done by mother nature in her never-ending variety of surprising and exciting lifeforms. Yet, in spite of all that variety and beauty, most of us have been to the beach before and have see a good variety of shells. In fact, most of the shells you find look a lot like what was left over from your seafood feast the night before: clams, mussels, barnacles, razors, crabs. People do, however, pick up a lot of shells and transport them to their homes away from the sea. They clean them, put them in jars of varying shapes, and them decorate their bathrooms with the full jars. The shells become a reminder of good times, vacations, excursions that ended up at the beach. The shell becomes a synecdoche for the sea, representing all the water, salt, sand, birds, fish, and people that inhabit the beach. The shell, however, may be more than that. In Spain, at least, the shell is a symbol of Christian pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Humans seem to have a strange fascination for shells which goes beyond reason or any kind of empirical thought. The aesthetics of the shell take it beyond the realm of simple human admiration and push it into the realm of fantasy and imagination as if the shell had some sort of supernatural power to mean or be or act as a simple sign. Shells are what is left after the animal has died. In a way, the shell symbolizes both life and death, a natural Janus mask signifying light and dark, life and death, regeneration and decay. As the shells grind down in the waves, they break, eventually grinding back down into the primordial dust from which they were originally made by the humble mollusk that built the shell as his/her home. What makes shells so interesting is their durability, their art, the very conundrum of a relatively simple life form building an extremely complex structure that is the shell, whatever its shape. People use them to create pop artwork kitsch of the worst kind thinking that they can improve on what mother nature has already done. There is no accounting for taste in such matters. Anyway, at some point an archeologist from the future will find a bunch of strange salt water shells inland, about a thousand miles from the nearest salty sea, and wonder who or what brought them there, thinking many of the same things I’m thinking about tonight, and wondering, finally, why the shell is such a potent object for collectors, and why such a strange fetish.

On shells

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On a recent trip to the beach, I picked up shells. Who doesn’t, but I’m wondering why. A friend had recently gone to the beach as well, and she wanted to show me her shells. Certainly, some shells are dramatic with spectacular spots or striping, unusual forms and sizes, they are small sculptures done by mother nature in her never-ending variety of surprising and exciting lifeforms. Yet, in spite of all that variety and beauty, most of us have been to the beach before and have see a good variety of shells. In fact, most of the shells you find look a lot like what was left over from your seafood feast the night before: clams, mussels, barnacles, razors, crabs. People do, however, pick up a lot of shells and transport them to their homes away from the sea. They clean them, put them in jars of varying shapes, and them decorate their bathrooms with the full jars. The shells become a reminder of good times, vacations, excursions that ended up at the beach. The shell becomes a synecdoche for the sea, representing all the water, salt, sand, birds, fish, and people that inhabit the beach. The shell, however, may be more than that. In Spain, at least, the shell is a symbol of Christian pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Humans seem to have a strange fascination for shells which goes beyond reason or any kind of empirical thought. The aesthetics of the shell take it beyond the realm of simple human admiration and push it into the realm of fantasy and imagination as if the shell had some sort of supernatural power to mean or be or act as a simple sign. Shells are what is left after the animal has died. In a way, the shell symbolizes both life and death, a natural Janus mask signifying light and dark, life and death, regeneration and decay. As the shells grind down in the waves, they break, eventually grinding back down into the primordial dust from which they were originally made by the humble mollusk that built the shell as his/her home. What makes shells so interesting is their durability, their art, the very conundrum of a relatively simple life form building an extremely complex structure that is the shell, whatever its shape. People use them to create pop artwork kitsch of the worst kind thinking that they can improve on what mother nature has already done. There is no accounting for taste in such matters. Anyway, at some point an archeologist from the future will find a bunch of strange salt water shells inland, about a thousand miles from the nearest salty sea, and wonder who or what brought them there, thinking many of the same things I’m thinking about tonight, and wondering, finally, why the shell is such a potent object for collectors, and why such a strange fetish.

On the sea

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Nuestras vidas son los ríos que van a dar en la mar, que es el morir–“Coplas” Manrique Are our lives like rivers that run to the sea, which is death? Three quarters of the world, or perhaps even a little more, is covered with water. The sea is vast, deep, anonymous, unknowable. We pride ourselves in our positivist investigations of the oceans, but I get the feeling that the more we know, the more we don’t know. We have both a past and present of raping the seas for their riches–fish, whales, beaches, salt, transportation. Take it from the sea, no one cares; dump it in the sea, no one cares; spill it in the sea, and kill everything in a thirty mile radius. We have fought wars on the seas, but the outcomes have never, ever meant a thing in the grand scheme of the universe. We sink ships, let the victims float away, and the sea remains the same, zealously giving up her dead. The waves roll into the shore, and ships and boats bob in the distance, testing their luck against the unrelenting motion of the sea. The sea is transcendent, universal, an entity out of time; its rhythms ceaselessly hammer its stone boundaries, which eventually erode, break down, wash away, and turn to sand. There are those creatures that have learned to survive in the waves by letting themselves wash to and fro with the tides. Human hubris may challenge the seas, but long after the ships and subs, deep submersibles and bathyscaphes, have gone, the sea will still be there, indifferent, rising and falling. If the sea is death, then it must also be life because those two concepts can only exist together as one. This has been as true since creation, and it will be true when the sun goes out in some distant future. We may paddle around and take specimens, do experiments and write papers, we may describe and predict the tides, study salinity, categorize new species, even learn to swim. Perhaps we can even learn from those humble creatures that live in the tidal pools that live and die with the tides as the sea washes over them. The sea is more than a metaphor, but it also more than just a body of water. So our lives, as Manrique says, are like rivers, big and small, and they all do run to the sea. We pick the biggest, most unknowable sign as the metaphor for death because no one ever returns from that voyage.