Wave and Flame

NZ Shoreline, Credit: Allan Kilgour

"What is the phrase for the moon? And the phrase for love?"
- Virginia Woolf, The Waves

The tide was in full. This meant walking around the rocks was impossible, so I walked to the end of the bay on the tideline. You could say I walked into the sunset. I love checking out the shells as I walk - most of the scallop shells are cracked and broken when they wash up but sometimes a whole one is lying there. And I have this little moment of joy, "Oh, that one is perfect". So I walked to the end of the bay and then turned around ready to walk the whole length back. Then I turned and saw it. At the other end of the bay a nearly full moon sat shining up in the soft red and blue flames and threw its light across the water in a path that came to where I stood.

As I walked, the white shimmery path over the waves stayed level with my feet - from the moon to me. Every time I looked out across the water I was led to the light in the sky. Midway down the shoreline I stopped and looked back to see the traces of the setting sun, and then looked forward to the radiant moon. And even I, who have seen plenty of sunsets and walked plenty of tidelines - even I was awestruck by it. This gentle majestic display.

I've been down to the sea so many times that I think it has left tidemarks on my bones. Like driftwood all smooth from being washed and washed again. Or the spiral shells that have holes worn in the curls that make each one distinct. It is a rhythm now - I must go down to the sea. But I don't say it like that. It's like a small voice reminding me softly. Reminding me to take the opportunity.

I used to think that I appreciated the wind and the waves. In my earlier years I wrote poems and stories - my wave phrases. I discovered Virginia Woolf and she captured it - the rhythm, the projection. The howling salt wind was the death of a friend, the hot quiet day was a celebration, the booming surf was my challenge to the world. Once, on a very windy day, the kind where it's hard to stay upright when walking, we went swimming in the raging surf. I stood and smashed into wave after wave. This was my unbreakable spirit. And sometimes sitting on the rocks I looked at an alien sea that I didn't understand. "Ancient mystery", I would think. That was my uncertainty and unknowing. I used the sea. I thought the strength of the sea was me.

Should I be embarrassed by my lack of maturity or should I think of it as a phase one goes through? Have I really passed through it? Sometimes I still want to patchwork my own phrases onto a language I didn't invent and am learning to hear and understand. This language surpasses my own. I'm like a child who knows six letters and wants to write a novel. I'm a hermit crab struggling with an oversized shell. The love of me.

So I walked along the tideline following the path from the moon with the setting sun behind me. A light for the day and a lesser light for the night. I thought of all the times I have flung my thoughts out into the sea. My fears, disappointments, victories, challenges, wonderings. The waves brought them right back. The ocean will carry you so far. Then you find yourself on another shore with the same kind of life. With the same heart.

I stood in the centre of the bay, and looked at the sea. The real sea - not my postcard message of it. The sea of changing colours and light above. What love is this that can set the wind and waves, and even be attentive to a hermit crab wandering the shore? This constancy, this power? Who am I that he is mindful of me with my six letters of the alphabet?

This generous love. The light above shines on the grateful and ungrateful. It is there whether we look up or walk head down. It is there when we stop and are overcome by the splendour, or when we are busy trying to make the sea in our image. I didn't throw my six letters into the waves. They would just come back soaked and soggy, difficult to string together. I thanked him for them. I asked him to help me use them wisely and teach me more. Then I returned home in the dark with a blaze in my heart from a fire my hands didn't kindle.