My love for the ocean runs deep.
My first memories are of the sea. I recall playing in the sand with my mother underneath a beach house built high on stills. The kinds of houses that line the sand dunned shores of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Even before I could swim, the enormity of this seemingly uncontainable sandbox utterly enthralled me.
I remember shells, ancient as days, curled and unfurled like the waves themselves. Beautiful, mysterious and tossed by shipwrecking storms. When you put your ear to them, you could hear the remnants of the lulling sounds of summer calling. Dreams of waves and a soft, warm breeze. I still have one of these whelk shells on my bedroom night stand in my parents' house.
Now I am grown, and I find I am still ever pulled to this infinitely deep and wide body of water. One that swells and wanes with the ebb and flow of the tides and the changing phases of the moon.
In the mornings I often wake with the first light of dawn. I can peek out the bedroom window and see the sky alit with colors as morning breaks over the ocean. It is a beautiful sight.
Yawning, and before my coffee, I sometimes brave the fronts of heavy sleep and wander down to the shore.
The most dramatic moment of the whole experience is often just before the sun is rolled out, full bellied and bright, reflecting clouds of pink into the water. A deep breath in and… there is something about seeing the first light of the day over the warming summer waters of the Atlantic.