Page 5 - Contrast1962Decemberv1n1

Search for a Secret

I have always felt drawn to the ocean. I love it; yet I fear it.
Its fierce majesty exh:i.laratesme to a feilling of wild, hysteric
freedom; yet it plunges into cringing insignificance. The ocean has
sometlilIitmgogre for me. It holds an answer somewhere in its depts that
might be a key in my search for myself. I am not sure why I know this,
but I can feel it when I look over its undulating expanse. It is like
a voice telling me, "Look out there. Feel it--that intangible some-
thing for which you are groping. Someday, maybe, the right time will
come, and you may find it."

The closest I have ever come, though, was on a restless day last
summer on the New Jersey coast. A grey linoleum sky loomed over the
horizon, solid and endless, scuffed by a few careless clouds. The
ocean lumbered in with its perpetual "thud •••swish," while scraps of
paper lurched across the beach, driven by erratic gusts. As I leaned
into the wind, sand particles rushed at my dark glasses, clicking as
they hit, then t.umbl.Lng across my chee ks and into my hair. I was
alone with the elements, and I felt a kinship with their restless spirits.

Some force led me on, across the sand, to the water's edge. The
fringes of dying waVGS nibbled at my toes, but were drawn back, lest
they should confide their secret before the right time. I looked
9yer the sea but say only a silent, endless horizon. Gusts tugged at
me insistently, as if they sought to lead me to some hidden wonder;
but before I could follow theft~dthe~ wane5whiBkedna~a~onntetnoth~ngt
nlBss~e icwaruidllt!ed-'::\tQwarelsthedtdhueneosn,ly concrete aspect of tho
scene in which I stood. But one empty height led only to another. As
I stood on tho side of one dune, the sand sifting down between my toes,
I saw that they, too, presented an expanse of blankness. I looked
around at the sky, sea, and sand, all so endless and so miserly in
hoarding their knowledge of what life was about. I gazed upon eternity
impressed and saddened.

There was nothing for me. Somethino w~s there, I am sure; but the
time was not right. The sea held its secret. It was the closest I have
ever been to finding the someting that would fill the void in my life.
Wha.t did the waves want to tell me? Wha t did the wind want to show me?
Perhaps God. I don't Mnow. As I wandered honoward , the sky's warm tears
of pity grew ibto a drenching, wind-blown torrant.

Dianne Petrovich