I lie back and close my eyes. My body on sand, my head perched on raised grass, the sun beaming glorious whites and peaches through my eyelids. Firstly, I am no psychologist, but some time before that perfect day, I had started to picture emotions as a chaotic body of saltwater inside us.
As we matured into adults, this body of water had to be controlled, or covered. I reasoned that the type of cover we developed was important. Too little emotional cover, and our wellbeing would ultimately explode, too much, and it would implode.
Due to various factors, some of us develop a healthy lining, durable enough to withstand pressure, porous enough for saline tears to flow. Some develop cover that is too porous, others, cover that is too solid, too hard.
I further reasoned that, lest we explode or implode, we would need pores, channels of release, of an appropriate width, through our emotional cover. If, like myself, one has developed a solid material as cover, such channels are not readily available. Boring through such cover takes education and constant mental effort β this work a necessity if we are to grow, develop healthy relationships, be happy. Now, in my little house all those years ago, there was always some sand in my ground floor rooms.
I never did again. I started to see saw those yellow-brown grains as residue from the fault lines I had finally managed to create in my own emotional cover. And so, barefoot, and under a blue sky, I made the short walk down to the beach. The call of the sea pulled me up to the summit of the dunes, where the shouts and ramblings of the surf confronted me. Perhaps that is what draws us to the sea. The clockwork movement of its tides encourages a manageable rhythm, a calming of our own inner seas, with all their tremblings and eruptions.
