I go to the ocean because it says "I love you"

As a kid, growing up in Neyveli, whenever we visited Madras, as Chennai was then known, I looked forward to my parents saying that we were going to the beach.  There is something magical about watching the waters coming in as if inviting us to play with it.   However grumpy a person might be,  eventually even that curmudgeon yields and wades in to be comforted by the waves.

As an independent adult, ever since I came to the United States, I have not been far away from the Pacific Ocean.  Life all these twenty-six years have been with mountains within the visual range, and the ocean only a few minutes away.  Every once in a while, I drive out to say hello to the salty waters, which is what I did yesterday.

It was a gorgeous day by the Pacific.  The sun that was not too hot, a gentle breeze, blue sky with scattered wispy clouds.  How could I be a grump after that?

Here is the one and only Walt Whitman, who says everything that I would not be able to articulate

"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd"

BY WALT WHITMAN

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,

Whispering, I love you, before long I die,

I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,

For I could not die till I once look’d on you,

For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.

Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe,

Return in peace to the ocean my love,

I too am part of that ocean, my love, we are not so much separated,

Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!

But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,

As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;

Be not impatient – a little space – know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land,

Every day at sundown for your dear sake, my love.