1. People who live near the ocean become accustomed to its moods, its temper tantrums, its contentment. They are willing to forgive the bodies of decaying fish and green-turned-brown seaweed that wash up on its shores and swelter in the summer humidity. They are willing to forgive because soon the ocean will be calm and blue. The sunlight will make the water sparkle all the way to the horizon, and the warm breezes will kiss their skin.
2. Many times, I have sat on the shore and felt complete, comforted by the sound of gentle waves, the cry of seagulls, the vast expanse of life rushing and receding at my feet. Other times, I have cursed the ocean for its expansiveness and unpredictability, the careless way it gives and takes, the unsettled fragmentation that comes with remembering how tiny I am.
3. The wind is strong, but I push against it, down the pier to the people fishing in the distance. I watch them, line after line producing nothing but empty hooks, undeterred and submissive to the process. Fishing takes patience. No one talks, and the only sound is the lapping of the waves against the stalwart, barnacle-crusted legs of the pier.
4. A new fisherman is there. He is wearing an oversized, bright-yellow raincoat. He has a bucket filled with fish, unlike the others. I see their shadows moving around, and I imagine their slimy bodies gliding over one another, exhausting themselves with confusion. I approach him, look in the bucket, and ask what kind of fish they are. I don’t know, he says. You sure are getting lucky, I say. Do you eat them too? No, he says. I’m vegetarian. I glance at his coat and the overcast sky. I don’t think it’s supposed to rain today. Just clouds, I say. I know, he replies, but the fish think I’m the sun.
5. His eyes are bluish-gray like the water.
6. I drive along the coast for hours until I reach a familiar coffee shop off the highway. I sit in a window booth and watch the ocean, its bluish-gray waves cresting and breaking against the rocky shore. On a clear day, I can see an endless stretch of water to the horizon. When it rains, a thick layer of fog covers everything, and I strain my eyes looking for an opening in it, searching for a haunted ship to come sailing out of the mist, its sails shredded from countless, never-ending journeys from this world to others. I imagine its ghosts must feel fragmented too, not entirely part of this world or the next.
7. The coffee at the diner is weak, but the peach pie is good. The waitress says the peaches are locally grown in a town just a little farther down the highway called Blue Falls. I didn’t realize peaches grew in this region, I reply. She sits down at my table, the glass carafe in her hand, and tells me a story about Blue Falls. The story is that a river — some say magical — runs underneath the town. To water their crops, farmers try to tap into the underground river through wells dug deep into the earth, and you can always tell the ones that succeeded because their crops never fail, and they grow the best quality produce in five counties. The peaches I just ate came from such a farm. I imagine the peaches in my stomach: my own orange, foamy, magical ocean. I buy a pie to take home.
8. At home there is a package at the door. It is addressed to my neighbor who left for Ohio last week. I set it on the table with a plan to forward it. I can’t stop looking at it. At midnight, I open the package. It is filled with sea glass, small bags of various colors, buffed by the ocean waves. The glass is jade greens, translucent reds, bluish-grays, and cobalt blues. It is soft pinks and dark purples and opaque yellows with orange specks. There is an inordinate amount of clear green glass, probably from beer bottles thrown off boats into the ocean then tossed by the waves, as if trying to expel it, wave by wave, against the rocks until washed up on the shore miles away. I hold certain pieces to the light and think about their whole object and whether the glass feels okay now to be a fragment of a whole. Does the glass accept its new form? I am up all night looking at it.
9. I cut my finger on a piece of bluish-gray glass and watch the blood spiral down the drain in perfect, concentric circles. I think about the fisherman with the bluish-gray eyes. Did the ocean bring him to me?
10. The waves are strong and petulant, and I sit in the sand just out of reach amid the broken shells, the waves crashing on the shore, the sand eroding under its force, dragged out to sea then thrown back. My skin is covered with a thin coat of salt from the mist hanging thick in the air. I lick my lips and lie down in the sand, the water creeping closer to me. I think about home, about endings, about beginnings, about trust. The ocean appears endless. The sun floats on the horizon.
11. I walk to the pier where I am certain the fisherman in the yellow raincoat will be. He hands me a pole, and we wait together until the sun falls below the horizon and stars appear in the indigo sky. “Same time tomorrow?” I ask. He nods and smiles as he reaches into his pocket and retrieves a piece of blueish-gray sea glass. I hold it tight as the moon rises and casts its reflection across the sleepy waves.
