Coastline Pilot

December 19, 2003

 

Chasing the Muse

By Catharie Cooper

 

How many ways can the sky kiss the sea?

 

Early lavender light bleeds to plum atop an indigo seam, while the waters surface plays in mirrored reflection.  The day races forward as violet chases pink into a soft yellow, rolling into a blue that is yet to be.  All the while, Catalina sits sentinel, enjoying her cloak of silhouette, slowly shifting to island reveal. 

 

Winter skies on the coast play their magic in psyche as well as our bodies.  While our counterparts in the east dig out shovels and plows, we stroll the shoreline in shorts, children build castles in the sand, and we wonder why anyone would choose to live anywhere but here.

 

There is a chill in the weather.  Okay, let’s call it what it is – COLD!  41° in the morning means an extra layer for my oceanfront walk and definitely a pair of gloves.   The change in temperature also shepards evenings at home with friends and bubbling pots of soup or stew, and an oven scented with freshly baked bread. 

 

In the gathering of like and disparate spirits, and the sharing of life stories, we begin to know more of one another and of ourselves.  Political bantering, psychological analyzing, literary arguments and the never-ending saga of how quickly life changes, fill the rooms of my home with the essence of being human.  We have thoughts.  We challenge one another to reach and grow.  We explore options of self-expression and discover ways in which we can support one another.  We speak of deaths and births and the space in-between.  We want to know one another and we want to be known.

 

Something about the holidays catapults an almost searing honesty into our self-reflection.  Maybe it’s the stress of family gatherings.  Old wounds played out.  Sibling rivalry remembered.  Dysfunction peers over the horizon.  Maybe it’s yet another mirror, that of the trees stripped of their leaves, their nakedness, that we are able to apply to our own lives.

 

Who might I be, if I weren’t afraid?  There’s an ‘of’ to the end of that statement, one that is repeatedly asked by those who search for a more authentic self.  Afraid of?  The usual answer is that of being seen as ‘less than’ that which I have carefully crafted as a public persona.  We all have secrets, some which we are sure protect us, others which simply assure that we are removed from engagements of sincerity. 

 

How do we move beyond, ‘afraid of?’  What masks can we put down so that we can share our magical selves with the world?  I am many people within one body.  The writer, the photographer, the dancer, the painter, the lover, the child, and the mother all play out within my waking space.  I am too wild for some and too quiet for others.  I am too liberal and too conservative, all within the same breath.

 

What secrets can I let go of so that I can live more freely?  Can I tell you that I fall in love a hundred times a day?  Can I tell you that I can never get enough wilderness under my skin?  Can I tell you that if I had my way I’d stay in perpetual motion chasing the sunrise across the globe?  Can I tell you I wish I knew how to make a better living with my writing and art?

 

But are these reveals, or simply an extension of what you already know?  Can I tell you that I can’t go to sleep without washing my feet?  That I’m still waiting for my children to find themselves.  That I boldly dream of a world without war, and believe it is possible.

 

The sea line, that precious horizon, has always been my confessor, the ‘one’ who knows all my secrets.  Maybe that’s part of the romance and dance of sea and sky, the reason I chase the light with photographs and words.  There is solace in the never-ending drift, a constancy that soothes my soul and adds magic to every waking moment.

 

How many ways can the sky kiss the sea?  I simply cannot count them all.

 

Catharine Cooper loves wild places.  She can be reached at ccooper@cooperdesign.net or 949 497 5081.