seas of the world

the sea doesn't look the same anywhere. that should be obvious, but it isn't, until you stand at the edge of six different ones in the same week and notice how little they have in common beyond the fact of being water.

i went looking for six versions of the same idea, none of them agreeing with each other.

maine

the sea here doesn't try to be anything. grey and cold and completely itself. i found that comforting. some water doesn't ask anything of you — it's just there, doing what it does.

hawaii

i didn't expect it to be that color. nothing in me was ready for it. turquoise is not a quiet color. it asks something of you. i'm still figuring out what.

norway

the water here doesn't move the way other water moves. it just holds everything in. a fjord doesn't echo — it absorbs. you say something and it just keeps it.

japan

the boats had been there all morning. i watched them the way you watch something you don't want to disturb. fishing boats at rest are a specific kind of quiet. the work is done, or not yet started. either way, nobody is rushing.

brazil

the beach went further than i could see. i stood in the middle of it and felt both lost and exactly right. a long empty beach is one of the few places where being small makes complete sense. the scale is the point.

morocco

the wind was constant. the walls had been there for centuries. i felt very new. the atlantic off a coast like this doesn't care about you at all. somehow that's the most welcoming thing about it.

same figure, six different waters. i didn't change. the world did.