My Father's Ocean

 “My soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean

sends a thrilling pulse through me.”    ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My dad loved the ocean. Wilder the better. He would stand  at the point at Gordon Beach, out at Sooke, B.C., in all sorts of weather. He would just stand and watch.I always wondered what he was watching. Even in those last few months, he would stand and not move. I imagined he was looking for pirate ships.

 In the early 1960's, my uncle would stay at our rustic, beat up  old cabin, thru the winter months, to escape the harsh Saskatchewan winters.  This huge , hollowed out tree was my jungle gym, so to speak. It was  an ocean full of surprises. One year I saw a grey whale circling the bay.

 My mother enjoyed standing in the surf, waiting for her picture to be taken. The surf would crackle and pop over stones making horrific noises. She would stand in the ocean till she was soaked. Waiting for someone to take her picture.

 My aunt was visiting one day. She climbed up on the old hollow log.  Then she couldn't get down. They got a ladder for her. She was worried about the tide. 

 When I was very little, I would run away from the sea. They always put me in that horrible brown snow suit. Ugh. How I hated that thing. Maybe I was really running away from it. 

One of my favourite

things to do was to stand on our  broken down stump. Stand and watch the ocean. I loved having my dad there. We would watch. Never really said anything. Just stood and watched. We did that day in, and day out. 

 Then there was the day, I sat at the edge of the ocean. It crashed and bashed around me. I think I  screamed at it. I didn't like it. My dad sat on a log. Again he didn't say much. He was patient.

 But I DID like the old telephone pole. Whenever we left the beach to head for home I would listen for the hum  of the wind.  Years later, many moons later, I still listened with my ear to the weathered wood, and the hum would always be the same one. It never changed. The same comforting sound.

 In my more shining moments, my mother ( her feet always stuck in the ocean), would haul me out over  the water. And on cue, I would scream. And scream. Terrified  the brewing water would boil over,  and swallow me up like a sea serpent.

 Many days . Many weeks. Many years . We would come and go. My dad created a story about this place. He called it "Johnny Fish". It was about a Selkie   ( A Selkie is  a fairy who takes on the form of a seal), with the aid of a  special white cloak. 

 With this cloak, the Selkie  could swim with the fishes and the seals, and have tea under the water with the king and Queen of the mer people.  At the end of the visit , the Selkie returned to the shore to live with her human parents. But the fairy folk  continued to watch over them . My favourite part was making up what sort of things they would have underwater: seaweed sandwiches, Sea cucumber croquettes, and Jelly Fish pudding......

 It was of course, a story for and about me. Supposed to make me less afraid of the water. It was always our story. And when my father died, it was still our story. But I shared it with my own children. And then the story  belonged to all of us. 

 When my father died, my mother took to sitting on the cabin deck. She would look out to sea.She would watch. Like my father watched.

 She would take me to the stump. She would stand and watch. Listen to the wind. I never wondered what she was watching for. I always knew .

 The ocean was a bright moment for all those years . As long as  sea serpents never  popped up, I was fine. I would catch my dad looking out to sea.  I thought he was looking for serpents.

   Sooke had  a magic quality. A  place where there was no phone, no electricity, not even a working bathroom. The smell of lye coming from the outhouse was a constant.

 It was one of the last things my mother would clean before  heading for home. My dad would make seats and tables out of log stumps.

  The parents always trying to get me to paddle in the salty brine. And me. Struggling and Squirming my way out of it. Except when I stood with my father , at that silly old stump, and watched for pirate ships, or Johnny Fish, and the fairy folk. We would listen to the seething wind and the crush of the waves. My father would be silent. Always watching. And I with him.

 "I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking."― John Masefield, Sea Fever: Selected Poems