By Sharon Goldberg

Here’s the history of life as we know it. First came single-cell organisms around 4.1 billion years ago in hydrothermal vents, many scientists say, deep in the ocean. About 600 million years later came multi-cellular organisms. Hundreds of millions of years after came the earliest animals. Hundreds of millions of years after that came the ancestors of modern humans. Perhaps there’s a fragment somewhere in my DNA that remembers my unicellular origin, remembers when my ancient relatives propelled through the sea engulfing nutrients. Is that why I am hypnotized by the ocean?
~~~

Ocean waves soothe me, calm me, restore me, revive me, reset me, release the chaos from my racing mind. I listen to their whoosh whoosh whoosh and my breath syncs with the rhythm. In Maui, in Thailand, in Belize, in Mexico, I lay against a pillow on a long lounge or settle under a thatched roof palapa. I close my eyes and revel in the sun’s warmth, the breeze playing grace notes on my skin. My thoughts float by like clouds. I drift in and out of sleep as Chantilly froth dissolves at the sandy shore. Ebb. Flow. Tranquility.
~~~

Waves lap, swell, splash, crash, spill, plunge, surge. Waves crest in teal, turquoise, lapis, cerulean, cobalt, indigo, slate. Waves are relentless.
~~~

Our blood is mostly water. Plasma, the liquid portion, has a concentration of salt and other ions that is surprisingly similar to sea water. Andrew Schafer, a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College and former president of the American Society of Hematology says our blood can be thought of as a private ocean, a recapitulation of what life was like as we drifted in salt water eons ago. The ocean is in our blood.
~~~

At Molokini crater in Maui, I share the realm of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea. The world beneath the surface is quiet. I flutter my fins, breathe through my snorkel, and peer through my mask. Racoon butterfly fish ripple by here. Iridescent parrot fish there. A school of yellow trumpet fish frolic amidst sea anemones and coral. An underwater art gallery. I spot a humahumanukunukuapoa’a, the reef trigger fish, Hawaii’s state fish.

In the warm waters of Thailand’s Phi Phi Islands, I swim with angel fish, clown fish, damsel fish. In Belize, I hover near spotted rays that emerge like cutouts from white sand then zip away. How do these aquatic creatures regard me? A large, weird fish? A competitor? A predator? An annoyance? Nothing to bother about at all?
~~~

Richard Shuster, Clinical Psychologist and podcast host says, “Staring at the ocean actually changes our brain waves’ frequency and puts us in a mild meditative state.” Orfeu Baxton, Associate Professor of biobehavioral health at Pennsylvania State University says, “These slow whooshing noises are the sounds of non-threats which is why they work to calm people.” We’re wired for waves.
~~~

The first time I snorkeled was at Club Med in Playa Blanca, Mexico, a solo trip. I met a blue-eyed man at the bar and we made plans to rendezvous the next morning for a snorkeling lesson in the pool. After the class, we graduated to the ocean and swam out with three classmates. A while later, they returned to shore but the man and I stayed out. As the sun lowered, the waves grew choppy. I am not a strong swimmer. I got tired. Water splashed into my snorkel. I coughed. I choked. I panicked. I thought I would drown. We struggled toward some rocks thinking we might rest there. But the waves turned mean. They swept us against the rocks over and over. We had no choice but to return to shore. Terrified, I clung to this man I barely knew. He smiled beneath his snorkel sending calming messages. He took my hand and led me back to safety. Eighteen months later, I married him, our bond born in the ocean
~~~

We begin our lives enveloped in amniotic fluid floating in free fetal movement. As fully-developed humans, our bodies are 60 per cent water. The earth we inhabit is 71 per cent water. We are of water.
~~~

On a sailing trip in the Dodecanes Islands, six of us cruised to Kos, Kalymnos, Patmos, Leros. Once docked, my then-husband and I tooled around on mopeds waving at locals and their goats. We explored streets, cafes, a monastery. Every night, our boat tethered to a dock, the waves rocked us to sleep. I listened to the whoosh whoosh whoosh as slumber caressed me, Poseidon on guard.
~~~

As bees are drawn to nectar, so surfers are drawn to waves. Surfers read waves. They assess their shape, the angle of the swell, the whitewash, the way the wave breaks. At Hookipa Beach in Maui, my partner Arnie and I watch surfers as they wait wait wait for a perfect a wave, then paddle out like a pod of dolphins to catch it. Staying ahead of the crest, they ride ride ride the wave toward shore.

If you’re a surfer, who do you worship? Perhaps Benthesikyme, Poseidon’s goddess daughter, the Lady of Deep Swells. Perhaps she will bring you kick-ass waves.
~~~

I don’t surf on boards; balance isn’t my strong suit. But I have bodysurfed. Once, at Maui’s Makena Little Beach, I bodysurfed nude. Nothing between me and the sea. No swimsuit collecting gobs of sand. The powerful waves tumbled me like flotsam and jetsam. I’m better off bouncing on my feet and bobbing in the waves or gazing at them mesmerized from my beach towel.
~~~

My final request to my family: When I die, please take a trip to Maui or Belize or Mexico or Thailand and scatter my ashes in the sea. There, my remains will surf the waves, or they will mesh with a reef, or they will settle on the ocean floor. There, I like to think, I will return to my ancestral home. There, I will rest eternally in the place from where I came a long, long, long time ago.

Copyright Goldberg 2023