Waves

Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by -- and afraid of -- the ocean. The sound of waves crashing on the shore -- soothing. The sheer sensual delight of being cradled by gentle swells just beyond the wave break -- among life's pure joys. The terror of being turned upside down and inside out at Cape Cod's National Sea Shore -- a reminder that we are all mortal.

What is it about the ocean that brings me back time and again as I try to catch it on film? is it the sheer variety of the colors or that no two waves are alike? Maybe it's the sheer power of the water as it pounds against the shore? Or is it the promise the ocean offers of connecting me to new places, new people, new adventures? I have yet to touch all the oceans and seas of the world but there are some memorable moments for those that I've met and come to know. I don't know if Old Lyme, CT was the first place that I saw the Atlantic ocean but I have a mental picture of my Dad sheparding us off for some crabbing or carrying me across the rocks when I was small. How safe I felt then.

I remember my first sighting of the Caribbean as we cruised into Jamaica -- that soft clear blue green of the water over white sand. There is that memory of dipping my toe in the Adriatic after an EPIC journey to the Lido from Venice on a cool late October day. How could I not trudge to the Lido when it was so close? So too, I can see myself dipping that same toe into the dark waters of the Black Sea off of a beach in the Ukraine. I haven't touched the Indian Ocean but I've seen where it meets the Atlantic at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. And there is a glimpse of the Arabian Sea through the Gateway of India in Mumbai to be dredged up from my first "big" trip to an exotic land. The trip where I learned to walk alone through strange streets -- using all the courage I had to get from the hotel to the museum. And that story is a tale for another day.

But my true watering holes remain the Atlantic and the Pacific -- in all their sheer immensity and power. And, even more so, for their ability to restore me and the constant way that they remind me of a simpler time when dancing with the waves was the high point of a summer day.