The Atlantic Ocean Blues
I grew up inland, in upstate New York, where the closest body of water was a bloated lake by the name of George. I can’t say I longed for the long-reaching shores of the ocean, being afraid of sharks and all, but the lake always seemed tame to me. Conquered. Expensive boats cutting through the motionless water tugging equally reckless lake-goers on tubes, or inflatable couches, even inflatable bananas. No fear of sharks. No danger of one growing hungry and taking a nibble out of sweet flesh. Owners and weekenders alike sitting by the lake’s edge or at sandbars, downing Corona Lights and listening to their favorite redneck anthems. There is a certain silence to a lake when they leave. Even on tempest nights when the wind blows sideways and rings the world the only sound, beside the whipping wind and creaking of trees, comes from the sloshing of lake water against the hull of boats and weathered docks. Even then slapping weakly, mimicking a fraction of the ocean’s turbulence. Child’s play - the lake playing little sister to Old Man Ocean.
In my experience, not all oceans are equal. During my time on the shores of the Pacific Ocean I was, for the sake of simplicity, happy. I ran through dreamscapes in my mind while the comforting heat draped itself over me. Heard Katy Perry’s California Girls in every corner of my mind. Conjured the lyrics of Led Zeppelin’s Going to California. This was the place to find beautiful dames running free on perfect beaches - flowers in their hair, love in their eyes, bronze legs moving in slow motion over the buttery sand. I had no need for any of this at the time, but the sentiment was there. It had always been there. This was an oceanside of hope where dreams come true and megastars go to relax and drown in heavenly admiration of themselves.
Canon Beach in Oregon was where the Goonies found gold and unraveled mysteries. Ruby Beach is nestled along the foggy outskirts of Olympic National Park, and named after a shining stone for Christ’s sake! Gold! Jewels! Bountiful riches! A place where your wildest dreams come true. The Atlantic Ocean is where dreams go to die. Where ships are shattered against midnight’s rocky shores and corpses bloat and float, skimming the top of the water as their faces wash away to mush. Where bodies sink to the bottom of the ocean and turn to food for crabs feeding the ocean’s black soul. Henry David Thoreau, in his book Cape Cod , immediately recounts the tragic shipwreck of the brig St. John carrying Irish emigrants to the town of Cohasset. His observations are grim:
“All their plans and hopes burst like a bubble! Infants by the score dashed on the rocks by the enraged Atlantic Ocean!”
“The largest timbers and iron braces were broken superfluously, and, I saw that no material could withstand the power of the waves; that iron must go to pieces in such a case, and an iron vessel would be cracked up like an egg-shell on the rocks”
Yet, he writes,
“This shipwreck had not produced a visible vibration in the fabric of society.”
Yet,
“The old man had heard that there was a wreck, and knew most of the particulars, but he said that he had not been up there since it happened. It was the wrecked weed that concerned him most, rock-weed, kelp, and sea-weed, as he named them, which he carted to his barn-yard; and those bodies were to him but other weeds which the tide cast up, but which were of no use to him”
This is the spirit of the Atlantic Ocean and its shoreline inhabitants. The people a mirror for its stark and cold indifference.
The beach I live near now goes by the name of ‘Sandy Neck’, which conjures images of body-less heads protruding in bunches from the washed-up rocks and sargassum. Rounded dunes stretch along its shores separating the treacherous waters from the rest of God-fearing civilization, their beachgrass hair blowing in the wind like witches at black mass. When the tide rolls back the ocean reveals its gnarly teeth of chipped shells and seagulls feast on clams, cockles, and snails. At sunset the world becomes as sinister as the Sahara. The red sun looms over the hunt as lions, hyenas, and deathstalker scorpions purse their prey in the sands. When the sun finally departs the sky turns bruised like a bullied child’s eye and midnight engulfs the world before the grandfather clocks strike at twelve. This a world where fear reigns and the ghastly remains of long-dead sailors and emigrants wander aimlessly happening upon secret love affairs, star-gazers and joyous bonfires, extinguishing the light, turning merriness to stone. Stampeding whitecaps eat the shores and you wonder how early colonist survived (they didn’t). You wonder how you will survive (you won’t). The stars remain - a final hope - blazing your trail across the rocks and the rot and the death. But soon, even this saving grace will be swallowed by bleak, gray clouds from further East, and you will be left blind and wandering like the dead who own these ocean shores. The gaping black maw of the ocean only remains open as an act of temptation for sailors and fishermen, thousands of years of wood-wrecked history and old bone lying at it’s stomach floor.
But always, despite its wickedness, the unending and unknown expanse is there to swallow, to preserve unspeakable sadness and fears for safekeeping - harboring the melancholy of the world. It teaches you how to do this too.
