Desire

I think that this feeling of complete surrender towards the ocean is closely linked to a strong desire to belong. There is an issue with belonging in there. The desire to be part of it. What I’m trying to describe is maybe an intense feeling of being grounded that arises from one’s immediate proximity to the immensity of the ocean. It’s so massive you can’t ignore it.

Notably, in both Melville and Mansfield’s writing, the ocean and the sea actually speak (this might explain my desire to start spluttering and stammering to mimic certain watery sounds). The first voice one hears in Mansfield’s story is in fact the sea, in it she writes “Ah-Aah! sounded the sleepy sea”.

I used to spend vacation time in Martinique. I prefer the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean. Nowadays, I can play with my son + my dog in the sea → they can both swim better than me. I feel joy when I encounter the ocean now, because I experience it through my son’s eyes. The experience of weightlessness and buoyancy is what fascinates me the most.

T.v.A To start, I want to say that I’m totally in love with the ocean. I’m also very afraid of it. Or, rather, I’m in awe of it. It’s the most fantastic body that exists. When I was small, it was my parents that first brought me to the sea.
(It was in Middlekerke: we had an apartment there where we used to go for the summer.)

My relation to the sea changed during puberty → now I loved it also during autumn and winter. I started loving its dark side probably because I perceived it as connecting to my dark side.

T.v.A. Power (on the one hand) – don’t want it to be the power, not the power that comes.
Approachability /friendliness. But the sea is not friendly, at least not in an anthropomorphic sense.
Completeness. So complete that it represents so many things at the same time. I think that’s what attracts me so much.
→ It’s Depth. But a depth on all levels. It resonates on multiple levels/there’s a complexity.
It’s impossible to know it. Like the spot where I take the photographs: I don’t know anything about it + I have been there 150 times. You think the sea is predictable but it’s totally not. Even though all those things are true, I don’t feel frightened by it.