“Nothing is so boundless as the sea, nothing so patient. On its broad back it bears, like a good natured elephant, the tiny mannikins which tread the earth; and in its wast cool depths it has place for all mortal woes. It is not true that the sea is faithless, for it has never promised anything; without claim, without obligation, free, pure, and genuine beats the mighty heart, the last sound one in an ailing world. And while the mannikins strain their eyes over it, the sea sings its old song. Many understands it scarce at all, but never two understand it in the same manner, for the sea has a distinct word for each one that sets himself face to face with it.
It smiles with green shining ripples to the barelegged urchin who catches crabs; it breaks in blue billows against the ship, and sends the fresh salt spray far in over the deck. Heavy leaden seas come rolling in on the beach, and while the weary eye follows the long hoary breakers, the stripes of foam wash up in sparkling curves over the even sand; and in the hollow sound, when the billows roll over for the last time, there is something of a hidden understanding – each thinks on his own life, and bows his head towards the ocean as if it were a friend who knows it all and keeps it fast.
But what the sea is for those who live along its strand none can ever know, for they say nothing. They live all their life with face turned to the ocean; the sea is their companion, their adviser, their friend and their enemy, their inheritance and their churchyard. The relation therefore remains a silent one, and the look which gazes over the sea changes with its varying aspect, now comforting, now half fearful and defiant. But take one of these shore-dwellers, and move him far landward among the mountains, into the loveliest valley you can find; give him the best food, and the softest bed. He will not touch your food or sleep in your bed, but without turning his head he will clamber from hill to hill, until far off his eye catches something blue he knows, and with swelling heart he gazes toward the little azure streak that shines far away, until it grows into a blue glittering horizon; but he says nothing.”
From “Garman & Worse” (1880), by norwegian writer Aleksander Kielland
Heading for the sea, the small japanese car with its dangling decorations rattling and glittering in the warm sun, just to underline the amazing weather. My lovely japanese friend shifting gears smoothly, and makes jokes about the vast amount of traffic lights in Japan as the billboards and flashing commercials rushes by, fighting a desperate battle for our attention. Their sounds are only exceeded by their colors.
After a while the city traffic lights makes way for the highway, and the highway makes way for a slow change into countryside. We take several wrong turns among the fields, trees, hills and overgrown old houses, but as the time turns its pace slowly outside the city, it did not matter. We stop to ask three ladies standing together for a corner chat by the side of the road, old as the hills the grandmothers points with an enthusiasm and energy in deep contrast to their sunken eyes, their headscarves, loose flowery pants and hunched backs. My smile lingers in my face for a long time after the grandmothers disappearance from the rear view mirror.
Im in my last week in my japanese home town: Fukuoka, and maybe because of that, or just because the silence and calmness of nature made my emotions capable of my minds pace, the impressions of these lonely old houses, each one on the end of its own road as if to make a point, had a quite strong impression on me. Inside my head during that car ride, in my mind I was picking out different houses and imagining myself living there, watching the world turn and feeling it rotate under my comfortable chair, closing my eyes and pretending the planet to be my own personal roller-coaster. Hearing my fantasies about living in the japanese countryside my friend laughed and said I would probably be quickly bored. Bored: what a thrilling thought. A modern luxury, an erotic dream; oh to be bored and what adventures the prospect of boredom could bring into existence! What possibilities of creation would unfold themselves to me on that chair in the countryside while contemplating the turnings of the world; a novel, a painting, a vegetable garden, a peaceful mind-revolution or an apple cake for the neighbor? My future imaginations made my mind reach new heights only exceeded by what was awaiting at our trips destination.
As the creamy colored small car makes a turn, a bend in the road and a change in the wind, and the glittering blue horizon comes into view, so clear, sharp and crisp as though the sea itself was created in the moment we appeared from between the green trees. The water is glittering a welcome to the sunbeams, and disappears into a white blue horizon where the border between the earth and the sky is remained a secret well kept from the small humans gazing out from the shore. As we climb out on the bare rocks reaching with trembling stones towards the great sea, the waves crush, roll and draws back from under me, and I am home. It is evident that when the human race created the Tower of Babel, in Gods punishment the sea was forgotten: for while the human language and tradition was separated, God left the sea unchanged, and standing there in the chill salt breeze I learned that whatever culture, religion, geography or origin: the language of the sea remains the same. In its wild untamed nature there is a deep comfort in the fact that it stays wild and untamed. I was a traveller that, after a long eventful journey suddenly finds herself at roads end, when you hit the sea you cannot go further, you stop, you experience this moment of end, change and beginning, and make a sigh before you turn your back to the horizon and start your journey in another direction; until you at one point in near or far future reach a different shore, but reunite with the same old friend, the same fresh smell, the same sound of the seagulls cry in the strong wind: the same Sea.
