By the sea

 

Why would a woman who has lived her entire life in the heartland; a woman who has only seen the ocean a handful of times in her life, paint pictures of rocky shores and beautiful waves?

I remember the first time I heard about the sea. My father had accompanied my grandfather to Europe and he called home. I was four years old and the biggest body of water I had ever experienced was Little Huron Lake in Minnesota. My father tried to explain that the sea was so large it was impossible to walk around it like a lake.

I had dreams that I was underwater all the time as a child. In those dreams I could walk and talk and breathe just as if I were on land.

The first time I ever saw the ocean I was twenty one years old and in Florida. I wanted to see the tide come in, but it was so dark and we were so high up in the hotel that this didn't happen. Nearly twenty five years later I would see the ocean around Kauai and find myself totally entranced. 

There is something about a rocky shoreline that draws me. It feels like home for no reason I will ever understand. Large dark rocks, waves pounding against them, spray rising high into the air in moonlight or sunlight it matters only that I am there.

And so I paint pictures of places I've never been, but yearn for.