Without
venturing too far out, I dip my body into the water. Testing the buoyancy of my
own figure, I wobble for a minute before reaching down and grabbing the floor
of the bay. I guess we’re not all meant to swim. Looking up, I see that the
others in our group all seem to commune with the water in their own way. Jim
has declared war on the small crabs at the floor of the bay, while Andy dips
below the surface and pushes forward with a few strong strokes. Behind me,
Megan patrols the beach, not really walking out into water any deeper than her
ankles. The children chase the fish around the shallows while their father
returns with a hermit crab. Each of our relationships with the sea will be as
diverse as we are from one another. Do we determine that relationship or does
the wilderness? I suppose this is the conversation Tom Horton mentions in Bay Country when he considers us
“engaged in an almost constant dialogue with the landscape around us.” Indeed,
there is an invitation there that speaks to all of us in different ways,
anticipating how we can and will respond with our own nature.
Slipping
further into the water, I wonder: where does that invitation take me? Whoops! I
wobble a little and then hold myself still. Scuffing my knuckles along the
solid underwater sand does not really count as swimming. Then, a shout hurtles
through the air back to the shore. I watch as Jim forcefully tangles with the
scuttling creatures of the bay floor. They evade his hand and reach for his
feet with their claws. Undeterred, he still pushes ahead with his enterprise
like the watermen of old. Tom Horton lamented the loss of the ventures of those
rough men. They did not just go out into the bay; they struggled with and
against it. I should wonder why Tom Horton’s “spirits of place” would invite
some to do battle, but the watermen represent a way of life that shaped the
region of the Chesapeake Bay. For some length of time, those familiar waters
became a frontier. Just as I see in Jim’s battle with the crabs the little bit
of fight we all have within us, so also did the watermen’s exploits symbolize
something hardy about the spirit of mankind.
I stand
up and pace further out, keeping an eye on the clear water for any crabs that
may be offended by my trespassing. A splash pulls my attention from my feet as
Andy dips into the water again. His face submerges itself as he moves through
the ripples on the bay. I lay myself horizontally at the surface of the water
again, but I dare not allow my face to sink below water level. Some join their
lives to the sea. Rather than contending with one another, the spirits of man
and sea are much more at harmony. Now, rather than splashing, I pull my hands
in. Then reaching forward, I spread out my arms. My legs struggle to get into
position as I just barely stay afloat. I try to emulate the breast stroke I’ve
seen performed so many times. Of course, the residents of Hog Island further
south did not remain afloat for long before their village had been reclaimed by
the sea. Yet, while they still made their life in the barrier islands, they swam! They lived a simpler way of life,
fishing and clamming right there between marshy wetlands and the fingertips of
the Atlantic. The community lived in harmony with one another. They celebrated
their life in a way that very few can nowadays. If only my breast stroke
harmonized with the water the way their living had connected with the sea.
Perhaps then, I could move forward not by inches but by yards like Andy. I try
for a little longer, gliding shakily through the water. I continue to try until
feeling in my arms becomes taut, and my body starts to sink.
I
suppose it is the fate of any unaccustomed swimmer to grow tired and return
shoreward. I go back to comb the shore with Megan and Dr. Matthew. If there are
those who fight the sea, and those who swim through the sea, there must also be
those that observe it. The plight of the Hog Islanders brought tears to my
eyes, but in the end the nature reclaimed its own. This part of the wilderness
is now preserved for us to view without interference. Though I have not lived
with the water like the islanders, I can still come to view the water like the
many tourists on Assateague and like Megan on the shore. From beside the ocean
on those protected shores, I can still hear its immense voice whisper to my
soul. The spirit of the ocean can invite us to look upon it from afar, and oh!
the wonders we can see even from land. How lovely in my eyes are the fringes!
How I love to watch the egrets patrol the marshy wetlands between the shore and
the mainland. Yet even there, the sun and the bugs drive me out before I can
remain there for long.
As I
look up, I find myself neither out in the deep, nor left on the shore, but
treading somewhere in between. I am neither hunter nor swimmer; nor would I
remain on the beach. I listen for the voice of the ocean and I follow it. I
wander out and I wander back. My feet might carry me by those salt marshes one
moment. The next moment, my heart carries me back into the stories of those
people that came before us. The spirit of this place makes of me a transient. I
shall not make my living on the frontier as part of the struggle between man
and nature. Nor can I take up residence in the sea, living in complete harmony.
Yet I also cannot distance myself. I follow the roaring sea, the majestic
trees, and the whispering breeze. I follow so that at the end of my journey I
may meet the one whose voice roars with the ocean and trickles through the
trees. Then I shall be where the invitation has called me.
By Jarrett Voight
By Jarrett Voight
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