Ocean Breath

We made it to Florida, and the place where the stars meet the ocean in the blackness of night already feels like some sort of rapture deep inside a place you sometimes forget is there. A reflection of the soul maybe…

Jackson is sleeping in the crook of my neck, and listening to the rhythm of his breathing with the rhythm of the waves gives me a sense of oneness I’ve thought of but haven’t felt in a long time. Do you ever try to strong arm your feelings? Sometimes when I read a passage in a book or watch an amazing movie I marvel at it in my mind but not in my heart. So in my head I try to travel back to it and somehow elicit some sort of emotional response. But what I’ve found to be true is emotions always catch us unawares. Like love. There is nothing outwardly theatrical about sitting in a room with the curtains drawn over the double doors, with the faint strum of the swells of ocean waves in my ear. But then Jackson, this small child just newly born, finding his way in a chaotic but beautiful world. I know he has a relationship with the waves. When he hears them his eyes get heavy, his heart calm, and soon he falls into sleep. He falls into the place the older you get is harder and harder to find. That place on the crook of the neck of the person you love, the person you cling to.

All the while nature emits its own emotions, its own expression of love. There is a heartbeat to this vast ocean, and the land it surrounds like a mother’s hand on her baby’s cheek. There is no end to its landscape, only a thin line that seems to disappear at night when the stars and the universe beyond descend upon the earth and give us a glimpse of the mystery and glory beyond…