Only a couple of months ago. The South Atlantic in Namibia. The cold water, the cold air, the African sun. Pebbles like rolled glass. I collected some of these against my better thoughts. The pier with hot chocolate for the KilcherKinder. Wine for me and Constantin, a different form of warmth on a cold day. African winter, not something one believes in. Barefoot in the cold sand, the high surf, tide. Flamingos in flight, their pink bodies, kinked necks, and streaming legs like an afterthought, “Don’t forget us!” Houses, building at the beach’s edge. Too close, too certain. Is there no storm surge, no risk?

This ocean I see daily, the ocean of desert, the ocean of grass, cholla, juniper, and pinyon. It is not lifeless as many think. No more lifeless than the oceans of water. We dismiss too much. The surface belies nothing of what lies underneath. If we can’t see it, does it not exist?

The ocean, power, depth, crashing waves, fluid, flowing, cleansing. What does it know? What does it see? What do we deny?

My mind stalls. The ocean draws me. Always has. Yet I have no more words to express, explain desire, need, floating, held, drifting to the lulling, the rhythmic calm of ocean. Sensory overload via deprivation.