I've always had a connection to the ocean. Most of my earliest memories revolve around the ocean. The earliest memories I have of dreams and nightmares alike are about the ocean. Dreams of "flying through the ocean" and terrific nightmares of being tumbled til I can't breathe, waking myself in a breathless cold sweat, nightmares that heralded the beginning of summer, and sweet dreams that savored its end. To this day I when I am in the ocean, time loses meaning, and I can spend untiring eons diving, jumping, swimming through the waves.
I was having just such a day today. Reading Perelandra by C.S. Lewis for an hour, then swimming, then returning to tanning (flipped over on the other side, of course) and the ocean-like planet described in our dear C.S.'s book. I'm afraid that I don't have the patience, nor the command of even English to properly describe what happened today. I'm also afraid that it won't interest any of you-which would be such an immense disappointment because it was so poignant and perfect for me, today, where and when I am in my life. So, I could do one of two things. I could (and part of me feels like I should) be like Mary and store these things up in my heart. Or I could write it down. Seeing as I'm me, and not Mary, I write.
The past month has been a wild one for me, to say the least. To be honest, this whole life has been a wild ride. But particularly, this month. My life is full of the smaller (or seemingly smaller) every day ups and downs. And above that din, is a larger more menacing, darker, furious ebb and flow of my ex. Things seem fine. Situations explode. Said situations resolve, almost always in my favor, with less effort on my part than my worry would have led me to believe in the first place. I barely catch my breath and something even more incredible than the last something is hurled in my direction. I am not just being a complaining (soon to be) ex-wife. These slanders, libels, insinuations, threats and accusations are heavy, damning, and completely untrue. But he persists. It hurts. Sometimes it is difficult to see the truth through all the lies. Sometimes it is nearly impossible to quiet my constant inner monologue as it pertains to him. I get caught up in a panic of needing to figure it all out, work hard enough, be smart enough and persistent enough to properly defeat the attacks of my ex. That's the manner in which my mind was occupied while trying to read my book on the beach and enjoy the beautiful day.
After about an hour of sitting on the beach in the high afternoon Florida sun, I decided it was time to jump in and cool down. It was just after high tide, so the waves were large and the rip tide was strong, made more-so by the sand bars which caused small outflows of rivulets to cut perpendicular to the general in and out crash of the waves. There were people in front of me and to the left of me and I didn't want to be near anyone. Even further to the left were surfers and as a swimmer, I don't really ever like to be near surfers, they seem like they need their own space. I walked along the bottom of the ocean, further in to where I could easily stand but the waves would crash over my head as about every third once was a couple feet taller than I. The tide was rushing out and pulling me further into the ocean, while the rip current was knocking me sideways toward the people and then eventually the surfers to my left. I just wanted to swim in the ocean without worrying about everything, everyone else that was there.
The sun went behind the clouds, and the wind picked up. The waves became increasingly more frequent and quite a bit taller in a matter of seconds. I continued to walk in the ocean, struggling to maintain some sense of control. At least with my feet on the ground, it felt like I was in charge of my destiny and could navigate where I wanted to go. It was an illusion I was feeding myself because I just kept going in deeper and further to the left. I wasn't afraid, I just felt "safer" with my feet on the ground.
"Just, stop. You can't control the ocean. Give in to the ocean. Let it carry you. Just float." It was one of those moments where you aren't sure if it's just your ridiculous need to narrate every moment of your life or if it's the voice of God whispering deep into your heart. I'm sure it was a mixture of both. There was a knowing in my heart that He was telling me something about my life through this moment.
And, certainly, there was my brain, adding a layer of words, that didn't exactly do justice to the sentiment that lay beneath the swaddling.
I went back and forth about it in my head. I picked up my feet and floated on my back. The ocean is amazing. Because it is salt water it is more buoyant than fresh water. You can float so easily in it. The ocean will lift you up and carry you over the waves...as if the waves weren't even there. If you allow it to, the ocean will pick you up and gently carry you and deposit you safely back on land. The place you really run into trouble with the ocean is when you try to do things in your own strength. Try to stand in the ocean, in one place. You can't. Try to face large, breaking waves. You can't they will break over you and tumble you for trying. Pick your feet up off the bottom of the ocean and relax and - I don't know how to say it - you are weightless and worry-less and free.......light, and somehow smarter and stronger, more aware of everything and melting into the background so that nothing really matters.
"You see, you're never going to have more of a say in what's happening in your life, than when you just let go."
It is easy to surrender to the ocean. I see the water, I feel it against my skin, I let go of control in the ocean and the ocean itself does the work. I know how to float. My physical body is familiar with how to do that, and I've had a lot of practice. It is easy to see that I am not in control of my situation and that I need to surrender to God, so that He can do what I cannot. So that He can do again, what he has done so many times in the past. And I have just as frequently forgotten, and begun to dis-believe. It is the HOW of such a commitment that is puzzling to me. I am willing, and I know He is there-here-everywhere....but how do I let Him carry me through life? How do I fall into invisible arms? I like to think of myself as a bit of a mystic, but this is so mystical that I can't get a grasp on it. I don't even have a starting point.
OK maybe I have a starting point: I think it starts with my thought life. I think it starts with laying down my thoughts. I think it has something to do with me not having to think that I can figure it all out and thereby solve all the problems that beset my life. If my constant inner monologue would just shut her big, fat, mouth. I think this is an ironic, catch-22, conundrum, charlie-foxtrot.
And this makes me think of a Jars of Clay song "Mirrors and Smoke." Though it only touches the topic here tangentially. It somehow fits perfectly:
I'm feeling older than my years
I'm feeling pain inside my chest
It's love that keeps me silent
It's my silence that you detest
Rivers flow into the oceans
And oceans never fill
I want to kiss your lips, but I know I never will
Love's a hard decision to risk impending choke
But love will keep you wishing
And my heart will keep me broke
I blew flowers, gave you candy to even out the guilt
I sent you greeting cards with messages that I could never write
Rivers flow into the oceans
And oceans never fill
I want to let you know me
But I know I never will
Love's a contradiction
Made of mirrors and smoke
The Love that keeps you wishing
My heart that makes me broke
You will always want me
And I'll always want to leave
Even though I cut your wounds
You still deny they're real
Rivers flow into the ocean
Oceans never fill
I want to lay my life down
But I know you never will
Love's a strange condition
With all the doubts it can invoke
Your love keeps me wishing
My heart keeps me broke
Baby, don't you cry, 'cause I got it all figured out
You always make me sad
But that's what true love is all about
Rivers never fill the oceans
But oceans always feel
The waters reaching deep inside them
I guess they always will
Love's a constant mission to a world you never spoke
Love, it keeps you wishing
My heart, it keeps me broke...
Keeps me wishing
My heart keeps me broke
Mirrors and Smoke
