nowhere to go but up

 

            The beach holds a special draw to me.  When I am relaxed and unthinking, that is where I seem to go.

            With light steps and a light heart, I walked across the sand dunes from the village streets, heading toward the beach.  It was a beautiful day.  The sun shone brightly and a few perfectly white clouds moved slowly across the deep blue sky.  I had my daypack strapped across my back with my towel, book, sunscreen, snacks, and camera inside.  I searched for a place to sit, but it was so crowded that everyone stood, watching the ocean.  Few people ventured into the warm water.  It looked calm, but everyone stared anxiously at the water, waiting for something to happen.  No one was relaxed.

            Without warning, a large wave stretched up, forming a wall of water between the beach and the horizon.  All I could do was stare in shock.  I looked just like all of the other spectators, watching the water, wondering what might happen next.  The wave did not move toward the shore, or retreat to the horizon, it remained stationary.  I could see water moving within the wave, but it neither grew nor shrunk. Seagulls, pelicans, and sandpipers had do gain altitude in order to fly to the other side of the wave.

            Looking down the beach to my left, I noticed two other waves had formed just like the first.   These waves were even stranger.  They were perpendicular to the first, and they actually crossed over the beach.  There was a small gap between the waves, like an entrance into a different world.  I looked behind me and nothing made sense.  Waves had risen where the sand dunes had been.  Two of them, with a gap in between.  In the space between the waves, I could see a brick building in the village.  A large tree grew from it roof, its trunk twisted and gnarly, leaning over the side, trying to reach its branches to the sun.

            I turned back to face the first wave just as it fell down from the sky.  The water was calm, as if nothing had happened.  I looked where the other waves had been and they had also disappeared.   

            But suddenly the ocean began to rise, and everyone bunched tighter together, too scared to enter the water, but too shocked to run away.  And then the waves rose up again, closer than before.  We were surrounded by walls of water on every side and the ocean continued to rise.  People pushed and shoved, getting as far away from the water as they could.  But there was no more, “away.”  The water reached our feet, then our ankles, and soon our knees.  There was nowhere to go but up.

           

            I cannot seem to get away from water and waves for any significant amount of time.  If water represents emotion, I guess that waves must be the rising of emotion.  Would positive emotions take the form of waves, or just negative ones?  When standing on a beach, faced by turbulent surf of tall waves, I don’t feel calm, peaceful, and safe.  I feel the opposite.  I am careful to keep my distance so that I am not swept into the powerful waves, to be taken away.  Therefore, waves must represent difficult emotions.  In the form of a wave, fear or anger or sadness can no longer be ignored.  The emotions want to be recognized.  They want to release their energy like the ocean, using waves as a metaphor, so that they may be recognized, accepted, and move through the body, to be replaced by the peaceful sea.