our waters
Something happened on the plane above the Atlantic Ocean flying from Portland Maine to NYC…
A school of whales, their shape smiling and contours glimmering, visible just below the surface of water; and it felt like a chance encounter. A secret between the beloved and lover. No tourist aquarium, no pictures taken, none of me disturbing them. Like the way you observe a child effortlessly playing and they could care less if you were around. Or the way your partner in flow, doesn’t know you’re watching. Pure beauty by being. Others might be present but absent for the show.
But you, you know.
This wasn’t amorphous ambiguous bodies of land from above, it was New England. The outline of Marthas Vineyard memorized in my mind. Recognized Rhode island from 28,179 feet. Could connect the not so distant dots between Long Island and Newport. For some two decades I’ve questioned, as one does, where I belong. Pockets have been my home, Brooklyn being one of them. But there are no question marks in the sea. Only salt healing my heartbreak. Seagulls lullabying the overwhelming 16 years of screeching subway tracks and splattered pigeon scat.
I want the sounds in my environment to tell me where I am in relation to water. Audible clues to the East. Though I love the jazz musicians New York City attracts, I no longer want it’s 365 24/7 soundtrack. One saxophone by Casco Bay is enough. Shedding tears that flow into the harbor. Dock your love with me. Even the current of the Atlantic flows circularly.
These are tears of lovers lost and the beloved being changed by harm. According to scientists quoted in the MIT Technology Review, the “Atlantic circulation seems to be weakening, transporting less water and heat. Because of climate change, melting ice sheets are pouring fresh water into the ocean at the higher altitudes, and the surface waters are retaining more of their heat. Warmer and fresher waters are less dense and thus not as prone to sink, which may be undermining one of the currents’ core driving forces. Some climate models predict that the currents will decline by as much as 45% this century.
If that happened, it would likely be a climate disaster. It could freeze the far north of Europe, driving down average winter temperatures by more than 10 °C. It might cut crop production and incomes across the continent as much of the land becomes cooler and drier. Sea levels could rise as much as a foot on the Eastern Seaboard, flooding homes and businesses up and down the coast. And the summer monsoons over major parts of Africa and Asia might weaken, raising the odds of droughts and famines that could leave untold numbers without adequate food or water, (Temple, J. 2021, MIT Technology Review)”
The place I love for it’s lobster and crab connects to the Mekong catfish in Thailand. It’s not the science that I can’t easily recite in a moment of tension nor the ecosystem I can resuscitate but the emotion of belonging that takes my breath away. How a place can feel like family and that my New England slightly Celtic taste is a cousin to Capetown’s coast.
Some people call it vacation. But I call it hope. Sitting on the ferry moving through the moist fog, receiving the salty spritz without desire for shelter, the ocean whispered Ali be a buoy. Buoyant in your action. Not flippant nor stoic. Rooted yet agile, always returning to center without trying to be centered. Not unlike the fetus in a womb; there is no concrete nor calcified protection between unborn life and the external world; water and skin, that is all. With this root cord not tightly wound, but flexibly connected to some imagination of wonder.
It is simply this that defines, I will do whatever it takes.
Will you dock your love with me?
Photo: Portland Maine, 2022