June 29, 2009

Something truthful in the sea

Something truthful in the sea

The sound of waves crashing on a beach makes me feel small and insignificant.

The West Coast Ocean sounded and smelled and looked very much like the East Coast Ocean that I’m used to. But the sun was in a different place. Late afternoon, I’d look through my camera towards the ocean, and I’d be startled to see the sun shining towards me. It was like the dramatic moment in a futuristic movie when the actor suddenly notices two suns instead of one.

My husband and I sat in the sand one evening to watch the sunset.

“Isn’t that bizarre?” I asked him. “The sun setting into the ocean! I feel like I’m in a science fiction novel. Something weird and futuristic. ”

He sighed. “This was supposed to be romantic.”

8 comments:

BrightenedBoy said...

Leave it to you to think of something like that!

I'm glad you're back and glad you enjoyed yourself.

Jane Dark said...

Gosh. You make me realize how much of a West coast person I actually am. I can barely imagine an ocean *without* the sun setting in it.

Rana said...

I'm with Jane Dark - when you grow up with the "sun setting over the ocean" as the default the idea that it doesn't set over it is weird.

I also find that being on the East Coast screws up my sense of direction a bit, since I'm used to thinking of "west = ocean" and everything orients from there.

(Here, in the center of the country, I'm even more confused. It's like how, after visiting Australia, I no longer know which way to look first when crossing a road.)

YourFireAnt said...

SCIENCE FICTION is romantic!

kathy a. said...

rana beat me to it -- my sense of direction was messed up the entire 4 years i lived on the east coast, because the ocean was on the wrong side.

Liz Miller said...

I spent lots of summers on Cape Cod, on the bay side...so I had to think a bit about why the sun setting into the water would be odd for an East Coaster.

Anonymous said...

I've only ever seen a sunset at the seaside - note that's seaside not ocean!

Unknown said...

It's not just coastal--if you grow up in some of the midwest, especially Michigan (land of the great lakes) your sense of whether sun rises or sets over water will be very much determined by which side of the state you live on