FOR THE LOVE OF THE SEA

Art by Claude Monet

I don’t know what it is. If it is the calm and peace of the vast blue water, the crisp breeze that smells of fresh laundry, or the fuzzy feeling of putting your feet in the warm sand. There’s this unexplainable power the sea holds to put me in a mild meditative state, where it nudges me to press pause on my anxiety playlist and just breathe.

I usually find myself coming to the sea when I cannot find myself otherwise; when I’m feeling a little lost, a little unprepared. When things get too overwhelming and nothing makes sense.  These feelings of paralysis, not knowing what to do next, have me always longing for the sea.

Maybe it’s to do with the fact that the sea has been with me for most of my life that I find peace when I’m near it. Born in the coastal state of Kerala, some of my most vivid memories consist of the sea. When I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, living in Goa at the time, my family and I would always come to the beach during Holi. I would run-up to the waves and get knocked out by them each time. Fully submerged underwater, I would fear having flown to the deep end and drowned. Frantically, I would try to come up for air, only to find myself right there where I was – at the shore.

Now as I’m getting older and life is getting a little busier, coming to the sea provides for a rare moment of solitude. Connected to it since birth, going to the sea takes me back to whence I came. I could be drowning in work or feeling down in spirits but being by the sea would remind me that I’ll always find my way back to the shore. The water, the waves, the vastness of it, would feel like home somehow. Saying I’m here through all your changes in life.

Recommendations : Watch the sunrise by the beach. It’s more beautiful than the sunset, trust me.