To Stand At The Oceans Edge
As humans who practice empathy, naturally we are always wondering what it is like to walk in the shoes of our neighbor. These days, I process emotions best through analogies. So here’s what it’s like to have been me, living in my shoes this summer and letting my heart feel what it feels.
Here I stand at the ocean's edge.
I have been dealt a strange set of cards. The universe has said, I need you to stand at the ocean's edge, for just a year, maybe a bit more. At first it seemed like some sort of joke. You want me to stand at the ocean’s edge, for how long? A year and a bit? And I can’t move? I can’t leave and walk to the boardwalk to get an ice cream?
“No you can’t move. Day and night you must stand at the ocean’s edge.”
This decision, made for me, felt unfair and paralyzing. I didn’t want to spend my summer at the ocean’s edge. I had spent many summers at the shore, not at the ocean's edge but at the shore. A summer at the shore, while fun for a bit, grows too long. The kind that makes you wish for the start of school again. This storm I was about to face, unbeknownst to me, had been brewing for I’m not sure how long. The doctors say maybe a year, maybe 6 months. They really don’t know. Regardless, during this unknown amount of time, these storm clouds were busy foraging every water droplet they could suck from the ocean and bayside rocks and the backs of sunbathing children. As you can imagine, when the thunder clouds released what they had been accumulating, I was in for a big one. I arrived at the ocean's edge on June 14th 2021. The sky was black and I was soon to find out why. I stood at the ocean’s edge through a storm that lasted two weeks. It felt like a lifetime. The ocean water was colder than you would expect for the peak of the summer.
I would like you to picture what it is like to stand at the ocean’s edge through a ravenous storm. Really draw something up in your head. Through the day and through the night my body was pummeled and slapped with waves far taller than me. There were points where I thought I was going to drown, and just when I would begin to lose hope, I was always gifted a short break, sometimes a few minutes, sometimes just enough time to take a sip of air before going back under. I barely slept. It's nearly impossible to sleep through a storm of that size. And for weeks, I endured.
After the storm passed, my body was left raw. I was wet and cold and my body stung from the slaps of the water. My eyes were left red and sleepless and my hair tangled into a mop atop my head. I was weak and feeble but when I wanted to crumple, instead I stood tall.
And as I did, the sun began to creep out from behind the dark clouds that now haunt me.
This one storm passed and we moved into July. I learned that whatever force told me to stand at the ocean's edge was playing a funny little game. She sent the storms to come and go. She was powerful and brilliantly bright, and just when I think I have her patterns memorized, she deceives me again. She catches me off-balance. She will send a wave on sunny days when I am dizzy from dancing and having too much fun and I am knocked to my feet.
I’m making this force out to be cruel, and really she has been a bit. But other times she sends me love notes. They come in forms of perfectly crafted days when the sunset is so beautiful it makes me cry. And maybe this is because I have endured weeks of a storm, making her love notes that much more touching to read. I’m not sure, but I can tell you that after standing at the ocean's edge for over two months straight, I have seen wild beauty that many others have not seen this summer.
You may be wondering how I have been spending my time at the ocean's edge.- I mean, jeez. A year + and you can’t move from your spot?, that must get lonely-
Well my friends come to visit. In the first two weeks of the storm, they would stand at the dunes 50 yards out from the water. Because the rain was thick and they had no umbrella. I could barely see them through the pelting rain but I would turn around quickly, fearful of the phrase “never turn your back to the ocean”, and I could see them blowing me kisses and motioning air hugs. It was hard to feel the warmth of their love through that storm. But when the rain cleared, they came to visit more. And this summer we spent many hours talking and laughing about nothing and everything.
Sometimes they visit when the water is choppy and they get splashed too. Sometimes on a sunny day, a rogue wave will come and we are all left soaked. Some of them cry after we get hit together. And I cry too even though I didn't much when I stood alone for those two weeks.
Some people visit for longer than others. Some people never came to visit at all. And while this makes me a bit sad, I don’t blame them. For some people’s comfort zone is a summer in the city, where concrete replaces sand and the ocean's unpredictability can't reach them. And that’s okay. And lots of my friends have work, and things to do and they can’t spend their summer, day and night, at the ocean's edge with me. And that’s okay too.
Maybe this concept of standing at the ocean’s edge feels unfamiliar to you. Or maybe you know it all too well. Maybe you have been slapped or drowned by a daunting mass of water and my words bring you back to that time. Maybe they make you feel something deep in your gut like the rumble of a thundercloud, or maybe a little slap of a wave that can, for a moment, transport you to the oceans edge where you stand alongside me. But the waves that hit me are different than the waves that have hit you. And no one, not one person on this earth, has stood in my shoes and been hit by the same exact pattern of waves from June 14th until however long this lasts. Just like I will never endure your exact wave pattern.
Some of my friends, and certainly my family, have been splashed or soaked by my same waves this summer. I would apologize to them, but I don’t control the ocean and most of them don’t mind getting wet for a day. Truthfully, when they are slapped by a big fat wave, one made by my oceans edge, it brings me comfort. And I’m not a bad person for feeling that. Because the ocean's edge is a lonely place and it’s scary at night. And nobody visits at night because they can’t. And when I look out at the crystal black water, sometimes I find it beautiful but most times I am scared. So thank you to those who have visited me at the ocean's edge this summer.
Today I stand at the ocean's edge on a peaceful day and there have been no whitecaps in sight for 4 days. Most summers I would long for waves to play in but today I do not miss that. I have had enough of that. I am entranced by the stillness.
So although the slap of the wave on my body has left a lingering sting and I know there are more storms coming, I would be silly not to smile as I write this. For the rays of the sun are warming my back and I sit with my friend Nat as her dog runs circles around me at the ocean’s edge.
There will always be another storm. Just like how in college there is always another assignment, paper, or reading to complete. There’s always more to do, and more to come. It never stops until the day we die. We are allowed to feel afraid of the sour weather to come. I am afraid. But on days when the water is calmer, and the sun shines a bit brighter, we must not let the lingering fear stop us from doing our duty. Our duty which is to laugh and smile and jump up and down and cry because we are alive and dance to the sounds of the ocean. Not free of fear, but moving with it. Today I’ve found a little piece of home at my ocean's edge. Even though it is scary. And even though I may have rather spent my summer in the city.
From my ocean’s edge to yours:
XO,
M
