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Organizations

chemicals, arguments. How can we continue to dump these ghastly,

putrefying wastes into a submarine world that once was the tabula

rasa upon which creation was first written? From here came the

simple protoplasm, the first living cell that spawned all living things

on earth, the microscopic algae that ruled for three billion years,

followed by trilobites, lampreys, hagfishes, sponges, jellyfishes,

worms, starfishes crabs and lobsters. Coral animals that spun great

reefs. Sharks, whales, swordfish, tuna, rays, seals and eels. And

somewhere in this scenario came the first amphibian to creep out on

shore, evolving legs from fins, lungs from gills. Man. Me. You and I.

“Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends

with the remover to remove,” Shakespeare wrote. “Oh no! It is an

ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken.” Did my

husband ever love me? If he did, he would love me now, no matter

what my mistakes have been, wouldn’t he?

And if he didn’t love me enough to hang in there with all my

flaws and warts, shouldn’t I be glad to be released?

But oh, how careless we are with each other when romance

settles into day-to-day living! We speak to each other rudely, as if the

other person is made of stone. The romantic state, in which we are all

polite peaches and roses, they say is merely the mating call that gets

two people together for the serious business of loving. That’s when

all hell breaks loose. That’s when we find out what love really is. The

politeness of the romantic state is not love. Love is tough.

But it is also kind. Now that this has happened to me, I see rudeness

between husbands and wives everywhere. “There is no excuse for any

human being to treat another person with anything but utmost tender-

ness,” my friend Frederick said the other day. “Everyone is precious.”

I feel like Carrie Nation, with an ax for rudeness whenever I hear

it. I try to stifle my own short-tempered urges, not always with

success. Last week, at dinner with one couple I know, she was talking, and

he said, “Get to the point!” She smiled and altered course. I was struck

speechless, could not eat another bite. Later, on the way home, I was

disappointed in myself that I hadn’t spoken up, or at least thrown my

salad at him.

I did speak up to my neighbors, however. I tried to alert them to

this problem when I heard them speaking to each other with terrible

impatience. They had been married eleven years, I was treading on

territory that was not mine to tread. They shrugged me off, they knew

what they were doing. Soon after, she moved out of the house,

leaving her husband a good-bye letter on the seat of his truck.

Many relationships - those that breed violence, despair or the

permanent destruction of self - are rightfully abandoned. But too

many ended marriages are like the ancient story of Pandora, which is

often told without the original ending. Horrified at the misery and

evil that had flown out of the mysterious box she had opened,

Pandora slammed down the lid.

“Please let me out, too,” begged a sweet little voice. “I am

Hope.”

“No! No!” cried the now sadder and wiser Pandora. “I am going to

keep you forever.” And she retied the golden rope in a hard, hard knot.

The person who causes you the most pain, say the Zen masters,

is your greatest spiritual teacher. Hang in there and get the lessons!

Humble yourself! The biggest test of marriage is the screaming ego

that is offended at the slightest provocation. I should not have asked

for a Time Out.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. This kind of thinking gets me

nowhere. Around and around and around

I go. Swimming.

What was that?

A dolphin surfaces so close to me I can hear it exhale. With a

slow arch of its pectoral fin, the animal disappears. Suddenly, another

dolphin surfaces, then another and another! One is a little baby, there

are four in all, travelling together. I move slowly toward them, but

they all dive and disappear.

Twenty-five years ago in the Bahamas, forty miles from land, I

swam with a group of dolphins every day. In water so clear I could

see their eyes as they looked at me, we swirled up and down together

for hours. I have never been able to get close to a California dolphin,

and I think it is because all creatures, animals as well as man , feel

less threatened in a clear environment. When you can’t see very well,

you keep your distance.

Most creation myths describe a primeval ocean veiled in

darkness, until the waters are stirred to produce fertility and life. The

oldest of these stories, an Akkadian tale ascribed to the Babylonians,

gives the name of Mommu Tiawath to the waste of waters that

existed before Heaven and Earth were formed. When the “face of

God brooded over the waters,” great gods arose from the depths ,

Lahmu and Lahame, Ansar and Kisar. Ea, the Babylonian Neptune,

was half-man, half-fish, Lord of Wisdom, who invented geometry,

writing, and law.

I have just read a news report about another Big Bang discovery.

The Big Bang! All the matter that makes up the Universe, including

the ocean I am swimming in, blew out from a particle of matter so

dense the whole thing was contained in the space of a period at the

end of this sentence. What a miracle! In the beginning was the Word.

In the beginning was a period at the end of this sentence, from which

came an ocean I can swim in each day. What are my marital troubles

in the face of such immensity? As I kick and swim on this morning at

Miramar Beach I think about the ancient Deluge that created the

ocean I am swimming, and I imagine myself swimming in a giant

pool of ancient rain. I wonder if I am buoyed by the same water that

floated Noah’s ark.

The ocean always tells you a different story depending on where

and how you experience it. There is the drama of the seashore, the

activity and thunder of waves, the quiet beach that provides the place

for a contemplative walk. From a hillside, the sun- or moon-sparkled

expanse of sea points to the silent grandeur of unlimited space, the

lure of unlimited possibilities. From the top of a very high mountain,

the sea horizon appears to bend at the edges, and one gets the feeling

of an open door to the rest of the world , a hint of seaways, freighter

lanes, the Pinta, Nina and Santa Maria.

Pulling back even farther and higher, there is the astronaut’s

view , God’s view. Earth is so much a water planet that someone once

said it should never have been called Earth, but Sea.

All that is finite and mortal fades in the face of the tides, the sea

winds and waves, and this invincibility is weirdly comforting to a

person battling sorrow. Revered by seafarers, fishermen and surfers

who do their dance at the edge of its potential fury, this Ultimate

Nature is also capable, ironically, of destroying people, houses,

shorelines and ships. Sea tragedies such as the sinking of the Titanic

are particularly enigmatic, for after causing such astonishing havoc,

such terrible, traumatic loss of life, the ocean smiles afterward with

beautiful, sunlit calm. The ship of my marriage has sunk, the ocean

smiles and goes on. I have to smile and go on, too. Those who find

solace in Nature know the lesson: there are seasons and cycles, and

after the frozen Winter always comes Spring.

Let go, let go. The rolling seasons tell us we cannot hang on to

anything, no matter how pleasant it is, and the answer is always to Let Go.

I have to bless my husband, wish him well. Resentment is bondage, the

continued tie. Don’t flinch! I tell myself. March! Get going! Have faith!

Dive deep, come back with self-respect, with new power! MOVE!

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we

stand, as in what direction we are moving,” said Oliver Wendell

Holmes. “To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with

the wind and sometimes against it , but we must sail, and not drift,

nor lie at anchor.” I may not reach the port of heaven soon, but I can

swim and swim, every morning until the port of heaven comes into

view and then I will swim some more.

In this solitary morning at the seashore the inspiration flows and

possibilities are remembered. The sea is full of kelp and metaphor,

translating life’s lessons into an easier language I can understand.

Swimming in this giant pool of ancient rain, this sea, I get strong

hints of a bigger, more unified Whole of which the sunrise, the diving

pelicans and I are integrated parts. At the beach I see beauty all

around me, and as I leave the ocean this October morning I leave

with a feeling of gratitude.