Collecting Sea Stories*

haystack rock, cannon beach, oregon (spring 2010)

I've been collecting sea stories. They've become like little pieces of sea glass that I'm stringing together into a beautiful, luminescent strand. It started last summer when I visited the Pacific Northwest and wrote a little essay about Puget Sound. Then I wrote one about Cannon Beach in Oregon. At the same time, I was also trying to write a narrative memoir about my life’s spiritual journey so far. But the narrative piece wasn’t working. All I wanted to do was write about the ocean. I kept trying to write about spirituality, but all I could do was write about the wind, waves, and water. And then, after a few more sea stories made their way onto the page, I realized the obvious: my ocean essays were already telling my spiritual story.

Like many people, I feel most at home, most alive, most like myself when I’m near the ocean. As soon as I smell the salt air my spirit perks up. The blue stretching to the horizon, the whoosh of the waves – it's like being inside a beautiful painting, inside a living, breathing piece of art. Being near the sea connects me to something larger than myself.

Alas, I live 350 miles inland, in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, a lovely pocket of land with green rolling hills dotted with sheep and cows. This land is beautiful, but the pull to the sea is just too strong for my wandering spirit.

And so every few months, I find a reason to visit a coastline. Two months ago it was Nantucket. This winter I'm dreaming up another trip or two to the Pacific Northwest. So far I've written sea stories about Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, California, New Jersey, England, and Ireland. There are so many more seashores to visit, so many more stories to tell. I can't wait.

*This post first appeared in a slightly different form on Gypsy Girl's Guide.

Comments

[Lisa]

SO much goodness!

I can't wait to read them someday.

Beautiful stuff, dear Jenna :-)

[Tina Tierson]

How wonderful to see that picture of Haystack Rock! I was there two weekends ago and took many similar pictures of that rock, as well as of the amazing sky and sea. Cannon Beach is where I go every year on the anniversary of my son's death. The sea brings me so much more peace than I can get anywhere else. I'm looking forward to reading all your sea stories. I know how beautiful they will be.