Done by LeRoy Grannis 1968-2007 period, it is entitled “Waimea.”
This photo intrigued me. I recall as a teenager I was most enthralled by California and the beach scene as portrayed in the Gidget and Beach movies and the songs of the Beach Boys. I guess I longed to go there and live like that. I certainly recall wanting to learn to surf. Such is not possible of course in Michigan.
Being from Michigan, which has a lot of water, and spending so many summers at the lake, I had a fond and deep love for water. I swam all day every day for weeks on end each summer. It was often mentioned that the only part of me likely to become sun burned were the bottoms of my feet. I was a underwater swimmer, coming up just long enough to grab a breath for another dive. We were blessed with clear water and sandy bottoms which made the experience pleasant.
I visited the sea in Connecticut and can at least lay claim to seeing the Atlantic, albeit not the vast expanse so much, since the Sound land is visible from most places still. I have never witnessed the Pacific. As water go, I’m sure it is similar. I am always mesmerized by vast anything, whether it be sand, water, sky or mountain. I marvel at nature and the forces of geology that shape and reshape our planet. Up on my sand hill, I can gaze out at the vastness of fields of corn and soybeans. While to some, it may not seem as dramatic, I can lay claim to knowing that it is.
When I sit there looking over the land, I imagine some Native People who might have camped there, close to stream, and forest alike. A secret wish of mine is to have one of those metal detectors and traverse my land, seeking, well, something that indicates who else has walked these hills.
I get of course, a much different feeling with water. So changeless yet ever changing. I’m reminded most especially of the wonderful metaphor of water and God. I am the drop of water in the ocean of God. I am of God, but just a speck of God. God in me, me in God. Sliding with the waves, gliding along in the silk of the medium of hydrogen and oxygen, magically melded into this liquid caress, stress melts, spirit soars, oneness is granted for the briefest of moments in time.
I love water, but of course that is natural, since I am mostly water. The affinity is what I would expect. I know she can be dangerous and is to be respected, yet if I am careful, she will do her best to dance and fly, spray and crash, shimmer and shine in wondrous colors that cross the spectrum, all for my delight. Us inlanders miss something that you coasters know. But then the mountain folks have their own glory as do the desert roamers. But us midlanders have our precious waving fields to hold up in competitive bid as well.
If there is a place on earth that combines it all, then that is where I should like to live.
Filed under: Art, Essays, Geology, Photography | Tagged: Art, essay, geology, nature, photographs
I too love the vastness of the prairies and consider myself a prairie girl, but my heart is drawn to the ocean. I wonder sometimes if it is an ancestral memory from my Swedish side–or maybe the English. They were seafarers too.
I hope you get to see a vast panorama of both oceans someday. In my experience, the Atlantic and the Pacific feel very different. But that may just be the associations I bring to them.
Ruth, I do think there is something to our ancestral brains that we but faintly perceive. I’m mostly English and central European but certainly not seafaring as far as I know. LOL. I doubt I’ll make it to the Pacific, since we don’t intend to move that way, and with the pets, travel is nearly impossible. I certainly imagine that one could ‘feel’ different than the other however.