July 17, 2011

            The sea has a lot of seaweed sometimes. When I swim in its waters, seaweed greet my hands and my face, they caress my legs, and I am disgusted. The water sways the tiny, seaweed hairs sideways, and they feel like gross little animals creeping down my skin. It stops the air in my lungs when I meet big, fluffy seaweed with my hands or, even worse, my face, and any swimming rhythm is broken. But after a few hours of that, seaweed no longer call for that gut reaction. They are the hair of the sea, and there’s nothing more to that. The sea sometimes shaves, and sometimes it doesn’t. When its hairs grow long, they reach out to all the weird shapes swimming about it and keep on reaching until the sea shaves them all of with a nice, hectic storm. As the sun begins to go down on hotel buildings and trees, I swim in my hairy sea, through its soft hairs, and let them engulf me in their green, 100% natural tenderness.

            The wet sand, the one at the boundary of the sea and the beach, welcomes all waves and tides and still keeps its territory. I sit there with my legs crossed, so that my back is kept straight, and bury my fingers in the sand, as its wetness withdraws. I listen to the sound of approaching waves and make bets with myself about whether those waves are going to reach my fingers. Sometimes they stop a little before my fingertips, but most of the time I’m right. I close my eyes to make everything except sound disappear. In meditation, you are always supposed to listen to your own breathing. I am tired of my own breathing, though, I don’t want to have to listen to myself talk and think and breathe all the time. So, for a change, I listen to the sea breathe.