Hours upon hours

The Belgian seaside is covered in cement. As a child I remember the boardwalk in Koksijde and how I spent → a lot of time looking at the ocean. I remember swimming with my grandmother in the sea; she would play with me in the cold waves for hours.

I start improvising a story that goes on and on and on until someone takes me out of the water.

If there are rocks, it’s great cause the water is flowing with force and I like to climb over the rocks and stuff. On and on I walk through the water. With the water up to my knees.

L.M. That’s what I meant when I said that the ocean is precious. → My uncle still goes to the rocks on top of the ocean to fish. The rocks are very dangerous and sharp and steep – and he’s 70. Fishing is a very unfair business. My uncle is often staying on the rocks with his fishing rod until 4 am. And I often wonder, what is his relationship to the ocean, actually?

Throughout my childhood I would submerge myself in the sea according to different parts of my body. As a toddler, I was told to not go deeper than my knees and a few years later no deeper than my belly button (NAVEL NAVAL) until I was up to my neck in the water in my teens. And all the time I would spend hours snorkeling over the surface, peering down into the water upon all the various seaweed and rock formations.

I used to spend a lot of time on piers looking at the sea. I had no boat and did not find it necessary to have one. For me, the sea was just a place of separation from the boredom of suburbia/of civilization. I approached it as a hermitage, a place of retreat and of endless discovery.

I was into rock pooling as a kid also, meaning I’d observe for hours what lives within the rock pools when the tide is out, and also during the night. One night I even discovered tiny sea worms that would explode instantly when exposed to torch light. This marine phenomena seemed to defy all reasonable explanation as I could not find information about such a sea creature ever existing. I’ve always wondered if it was only a waking sea dream.

Some people from the generation of my mother and before came to France from the West Indies by boat. Like the European migrants arriving at Ellis Island. And I often wonder what it would feel like to sail for days and days on the ocean without seeing the shore + then, suddenly, seeing it. You’re starting a new life somewhere new but at the same time you’re in the middle of nowhere (during the crossing).