I'M TALKIN' HERE........

Oceans of love

Just say the word “ocean” and a whole world opens to me. Like schools of fish, my thoughts collect and my emotions get into line, waiting for their chance to weave their way and come for air. Patiently they await their turn to surface, each with an urgency to be heard.

Let me start by stating that my birthday is January the twentieth. That puts me on an astrological cusp. I am free to teeter between Aquarius and Capricorn. I choose Aquarius, a bearer of water, with its associated element, air. Both thoughts at the very mention of the word ocean, co-mingle into one. Sea mist, water being carried into the air. Can’t you just hear it as it ascends and whispers to the sky on a calm day? On a cold windy day, can’t you hear it as it roars upward from its home of shiny silver or aqua blue, pushing the air in its path, screaming it’s presence? Oceans of emotion. Waves of happiness. It isn’t hard to understand these word combinations.

A retrospective look at my life bears witness to my love of the ocean and, for that matter, all of it’s tributaries. Bodies of watery color have played major roles in who and why I am. My love affair began when I was young, the daughter of a woman who had the same urgency to experience all that is the ocean. Mine are memories that are soaked with visions of a young mother, clutching me as we went deeper and deeper still. Her beautiful smile, the pure joy, the laughter we both shared. Oh the buoyancy, the freedom, the special trust developed between mother and child as we dipped into the blue-green waters. Years later, this same scene played itself again and again. A young mother and an adoring grandmother this time, each grasping a small, slightly apprehensive child. The ritual of introduction to the purest of pleasures as we circled and bobbed up and down to a cartoon theme song. Dee dump dee dump, dee dump dee diddily dump dee dump….. The awakenings of the trust that would get us through many years to come.Now, its my turn to be the grandmother, greeting the arrival of summer. It won’t be long before the large raw bar of the shore line gives way to the slapping of tiny waves and once again, the salty smells and briny foam calls us back into our ritual.

It is said that Aquarians oftentimes exhibit eccentric behaviors. They love to surround themselves with lots of people, preferably family and friends. They are happy to give and give back as much as they can. For those, amongst a host of other reasons, I am a true Aquarian. I’m ready to surround myself with my little loved ones, giving to them, giving back to my mother in my own eccentric song of the sea…. dee dump dee diddily dump. Myself and my grandbabies, surrounded by an ocean of love.