Respect

L.J. I like that it’s wild and free and so beautiful. It takes the place that it needs. It’s very powerful. I think of the ocean as a very powerful + strong woman. I have great respect for her. She’s amazing. She’s full of life. She’s Untamable (→ that includes all of it.) I would like to be like her:

Fish is precious. There is a lot of respect for the space they inhabit. There is almost a religious aspect to my family’s relationship with the ocean: → they want to be protected by it. The ocean has a sacred element to it.

The ocean has enormous power as an entity which has agency, that decides. The word ocean is male in Portuguese. The Atlantic is never something that is a given, that can be taken for granted. Being in relation to it is always a fight. It performs its agency quite loudly. It is not a background. It is quite a force. You don’t fuck with it, you have to check it first, you cannot just go in. Boys would do it. They would play with it and its aggressiveness. They would go in and be smashed by the waves.

Elements make you feel small. Respect and fear → define one’s relation to the ocean. It's work. A fisher friend from Brittany once said that when you fall far into the ocean, knowing how to swim doesn’t change anything. Cause any way you cannot fight it.

When at sea, you have to figure out how to stay alive. Never start a dispute with the sea – you’ll always lose. If the weather is bad – you’ll have no more money. You make a deal with the sea, → respect the sea be very “low”/calm – don’t try to challenge it. If there is no other way, you have to do it. Let the sea do the work.

That’s your space
That’s my space and that’s good.
It’s an interaction of respect.