I remember being at Bethany Beach with my family one summer. I remember the feeling of hot sand burning my feet and the relief of going out into the gray, murky waves of the Atlantic. I waded out, caught a few waves and paddled back to the shore. Until the waves caught me. I was tumbled by them like clothes in a dryer. I broke the surface just long enough to take a gulp of air before they dragged me back under. Time bent and I found myself in a new seasonality: panic, break the surface, swallow a breath, succumb again. I emerged, frightened and far from where I started but otherwise unharmed. I remember the long walk back to where my family sat under big, rainbow umbrellas. It felt to me like a walk of shame.
I have felt battered by the waves of the news cycle in recent years. The world seems to be a devastating and endless cycle of hell that drags me deep within the heart of my own rage. I read the news and feel small, as powerless to stop the corruption as I am powerless to stop the tides. But these waves are no natural phenomenon. After a recent whiplash, I couldn’t help but wonder: who profits from my rage? What is not being noticed, individually or collectively, by the inaction of righteousness engendered by a 24 hour news cycle?
This walk back to a more grounded reality felt like one of shame. I should have had the skill to surf these waves without falling victim to them. But, then again, I am only human. In a world that feels this unstable, being able to flesh out my discomfort on the bones of a new story, feeling myself a participant in the correction of this world through my moral disgust, even just having a vocabulary to name the unsettled feelings that plague me, gives me a sense of power. But is this power? True power is the command of one’s attention. It requires a turning away from consumption and grounding instead in the depths of our own creativity. It is the courage to feel our feet on the ground, no matter how hot the sand.
These days I live on the shores of Connecticut. When I have the wisdom to remember it, I’ll go to the ocean to feel her magnitude. There is comfort in this kind of smallness. The ocean is neutral to my joy and my sorrow. But she still generously offers herself as a balm, anchoring me into the sound of the stones my son throws at her belly and his ensuing laughter that ripples through the air in waves.
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