Wave goodbye

I have always been fascinated with edges: points of contact and transition. The moments just, just before an accident, before finding out life-altering news, and so on. The most compelling physical edge for me is the ocean shore, the pulse of the planet; the point of proof that we are on something in motion, alive.

My interest is heightened by the sense that I can put my finger right on the spot where an entire continent begins and ends. And watch that spot change with each wave, as what was ocean becomes land and vice versa, as solid and liquid reverse. I soar into space, look down and see the literal pin point of demarcation between continent and ocean--the point where global definitions balance on a line no thicker than a grain of sand.  I note the contrast between the dry, tidy, discrete perfection of the map vs. the messy liquidity, volatility and impermanence of the close-up. I zoom back in, select a grain of dry sand and watch the next wave approach. 

This convergence of solid and liquid injects emotions and scenarios into a purely disinterested physical process and thus, for me, encourages interpretation and meaning. A story.

And the story I created was the claim of the waves: the effort by each wave to complete itself; to reach as far into the shore as it could; to perfect that quest by eluding or overpowering its predecessor whose normal return pulse works to block it. And it was always the same story, each wave “hoping” for a clean run at the shore, to move the boundaries of the shore back, if only a little.

And so I got up the courage to tell son Daniel, whose push pull rhythms, whose literal heartbeat, has lapped on my shores since birth, of my special take on the tides; of my story.

And so I found that he has always had the mirror image of that story; the difference being that he always “rooted” for the waves trying to escape the shore as they returned to sea.What our stories had in common was a focus on the frustration of thwarted movement. A focus on the relation between shape and fate: the relation between individual and environment; an appreciation for the ideal shape and size to things which combines with timing and positioning to greater effect than height and froth.

I felt a joyous identification with a kindred spirit and a simultaneous sadness: was wave watching for him more an exercise in frustration, of thwarted motion, than of simple, sparkling pleasure? Why couldn’t he – or I  – just leave it alone, without triumph, failure, meaning, story?

And then I began to wonder about our differences, our reversal: what did it mean about our personalities and the likelihood of his taking different turns at looming points of definitions – edges – in his life? 

 And why did he identify with the waves trying to leave? What was he trying to get away from, anyway?

And what’s his rush?